Spring Rain and Winter Storms
by SilverShine
Summary: [KakaSaku] Various short oneshots of varying length, theme, and rating. Enjoy!
1. Mistake

23rd November 2007

Disclaimer: Unless stated otherwise, Sakura is 18+.

Rating: T

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01. **Mistake**

Eighteenth birthdays were always something a bit special. Sakura was the first of the Three to turn this special number, and she celebrated it the way most eighteen year olds celebrated anything – with music, friends and great quantities of alcohol.

Kakashi had simultaneous both wanted to come and avoid the whole thing. He did not do parties. He did not do snack food or silly dancing, or small talk, or little shots of vodka. But he did want to see Sakura on her special day, because after all, you only turned 18 once.

And she had threatened him with dismemberment if he didn't show up, so that was also a nice motivator.

But as he usually did at large social gatherings, Kakashi found himself hovering at the fringes of the merriment. He had a drink in one hand that he hadn't so much as sipped all evening, because he wanted to at least _look_ like he was part of the proceedings, and in the other hand he held his beloved Icha Icha Sports; a social security blanket and defensive tool to ward off anyone who might foolishly try to engage him in conversation. All he really had to do was linger until he saw Sakura, wish her a happy birthday, and then be free to leave.

"Sensei!"

She pounced on him as if from no where and threw her arms around his neck. "I'm so glad you could make it!"

He could tell she was a little drunk, because the sweet smell of alcopops clung to her like a sour perfume, and she was being awfully friendly, even for Sakura. Her front pressed tightly to his as she squeezed him, letting him feel her every contour against his.

"Are you enjoying your party, Sakura-chan?" he asked, with a slightly embarrassed laugh as he attempted to extricate himself from her grip.

"I am now," she purred, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. "You smell wonderful, sensei."

"Ah…"

"Did you bring my present?" she chirped swiftly, although she still had yet to release him.

"I already gave it to you this morning, remember?"

"Oh?" She frowned, gazing up at him through slightly glazed eyes. "I don't remember that…"

"Well-"

"Can I have another one?"

"Forgetting you've received a present off someone doesn't quite entitle you to another," he pointed out kindly.

"Oh, what? Won't you indulge me?"

"But I have nothing to give you."

"I can think of many things you could give me," she said, in the same purr as before. "Some of them I feel entitled to."

"P-Pardon?"

"Oh, sensei," she sighed, running her hands over his chest as she leant against him. "Alcohol does such strange things to your mind. Thoughts and feelings you normally guard so carefully come pouring out and people you are terrified of suddenly become as approachable as cuddly kittens."

"W-What?" His voice hitched. Where was her hand going?

"Sensei, indulge a birthday girl," she coaxed. Her knee forcibly slipped between his legs and Kakashi thought his heart would explode it was drumming in his ears so loudly. "I used to fantasize about you, you know. I always looked up to you. I've been such a naughty girl, sensei. Maybe you should spank me?"

"S-Spank you?" he repeated.

"Yes._ Spank me,"_ she whispered wantonly. She looked up at him and licked her lips as one of her hands slipped over his hip to stroke his thigh, dangerously close to parts of him that her hand had no business getting acquainted with. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, sensei?"

Before he could formulate a reply, she suddenly leant back sharply and gave him a suspicious glare. "Wait a minute," she slurred. "You're not Iruka-sensei!"

Then without further ado, she pushed away from him and staggered away through the crowd of people.

Kakashi tore down his mask with a trembling hand, and downed the entirety of his drink in several gulps. He couldn't go home yet, he decided. He needed several more drinks before he could recover from that terrible shock, along with a couple of years in intensive psychotherapy.


	2. Pride

3rd January 2008

Rating: T

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02. **Pride**

I was proud of this girl. I am not easily impressed, and the first time I met her I was left in despair. The brunette would go far, but that went without saying. The blonde at least had the drive to do the same. But the girl? I though she was a waste of time, more concerned with how her hair looked than her teammates safety – although her insipid attachment to the brunette was more of a hindrance than a help.

But time changes everything, and it certainly worked its magic with her.

Her vanity disappeared, she stopped uttering words of love and romance and she became a critical part of every team she was thrown into. Her willingness to blend into a team and work together with others puts the other two to shame. She has no illusions of striking out on her own and defeating enemies single-handedly, but that's not to say she has no drive or ambition. She simply knows her limits and knows exactly how to get a job done, and usually that means swallowing your ego and accepting help.

I was proud of this girl. In three short years she far surpassed my low expectations – _everyone's_ low expectations – and became one of the finest kunoichi this village has ever produced. She's probably the most eligible female in Konoha, and I know eyes watch her wherever she goes and that poor boys fall to stuttering pieces when she deigns to acknowledge their existence, because not only is she a worthy ally, she's also beautiful and kind and capable of a sweetness that belies the fiery temper that hides beneath the surface. She has remarkable patience, but she doesn't take shit from anybody.

Apart from him.

I _was _proud of this girl. I was, when I watched her during those long months of endless missions to retrieve the lost member of our team. She cared about him still, but her wild, out-of-control obsession was gone. She took her job seriously, and her motivation for wanting Sasuke back was for the village's sake. For Naruto's sake. The first time I saw her smash her fist into Sasuke's pretty face, I thought that this was a girl who would never let anyone push her around.

But I was wrong.

Three years after Sasuke's return, it happened. Out of the blue, Sakura came to my door and told me she was going to marry Sasuke. She had my blessing at first, because I thought perhaps their love affair had been private. But as I watched over the proceeding weeks, I grew uncomfortably aware that I had missed nothing between them. There _was nothing_ to miss.

He barely looked at her. They never held hands. They never even embraced. He criticised little things about her, and had anyone else said the same to her, she would have knocked them unconscious. But because it was Sasuke, she smiled and accepted it, like perhaps she deserved it.

I'm not proud of this girl anymore. She's disappointed me more than anyone else ever has. I thought I saw a strong-minded woman bloom from a silly, whimsical bud of a girl, and I thought that she was too smart, and too self-aware to fall back on bad habits. The week before the wedding, I felt I no longer recognised her. All I heard from her was talk of love and romance and wedding dresses. She didn't care about her job. She didn't even care about the village. As long as she had Sasuke, nothing else mattered. There are a hundred better men in this village for her; ones who wouldn't neglect her or mistreat her, but she's so caught up in the fantasy that she doesn't notice. I don't think she ever will.

She does, however, notice me, because I avoid her. I don't look at her. I criticise her form during practise, and say the things to her that Sasuke so casually drops, and she looks at me, hurt, as if I've betrayed her. It's clear that only Lord Sasuke can treat her in such a way.

"Why are you being so mean?" she demands, throwing down her kunai halfway through our session two days before her wedding. "This isn't like you."

"Stop wasting time," I tell her shortly. "Pick up the kunai."

She doesn't comply, even though if I was Sasuke she would be obeying like a meek mouse. But then, if I was Sasuke, she never would have rebelled in the first place.

"This is about me marrying Sasuke, isn't it?" she demands. "You've been weird since I first told you about it. What's the matter with you?"

I narrow my eyes and wait for some vapid accusation of jealousy. Someone so wrapped up in the ideology of romance probably saw the world in shades of powder pink and throbbing red, where everyone acts upon feelings of love and variations thereof.

"Maybe if you pulled your head out from Sasuke's glorious ass for two minutes, you'd see for yourself," I say shortly.

She's speechless, and though her eyes are wide, she remains blind. "What the hell…? Do you think I'm not going to take my work seriously or something? Because I'm getting married?" she snaps, surprising me. "You're a crusty old man who hates love and romance – no wonder you despise me now. You're jealous that I have Sasuke and you have no one!"

"You're an idiot," I say bluntly. Because she is. "I'm not jealous of _you_. I'm jealous of-"

I have to cut off my own words because my mouth is running away with me, which is something it rarely does. I feel tense and angry, and when I'm like this I say things I don't mean to say… as in I say the things I really _mean,_ even though I may not realise it till its out and I can't take it back

I know what I meant to say.

I'm _not_ jealous, I tell her. I'm just worried she's lost sight of the important path in life. I can tell she doesn't agree, and that she doesn't even believe me - which is fair because I've begun to stop believing it myself, even though it is still semi-truthful.

The real fact of the matter is that… I probably _am_ jealous, despite what I've been telling myself ever since Sakura announced she was getting married.

"Don't bother coming to the wedding," she says. "You're not welcome anymore."

That's not how I wanted this unplanned encounter to end. I catch her arm, ready to apologise because I'm not really like Sasuke and I don't like upsetting her. She's stupid, young, and wrong, but I love her and I hate seeing her hurt. That's the whole reason why I hate seeing her with Sasuke. With anyone else, I might be happy for her… but not him. Never him.

She refuses to look at me and stares resiliently off into the trees as if I'm not there, despite my firm hold on her arm. Her eyes are swimming with unshed tears and I know whatever I do or say next will make them spill.

"I'm sorry," I say.

Her chin trembles. She blinks. Tears gush down her cheeks.

I don't know how else to make her understand, so I do exactly the wrong thing. Instead of sitting her down and explaining to her that she could do better – that she is not the kind of girl who could take such passive abuse from a man for the rest of her life without going nuts and killing him eventually – and hoping that she may absorb that fact before it was too late…

Instead of doing what I should have done, I dragged her against me, caught her face between her hands and pressed my mouth to hers.

My mask gets in the way.

I tear it off after the first fumbled kiss and attempt to catch her lips again, but by now her senses have caught up and she's fighting. She's kicking and scratching and with one hard bite she draws blood. I release her as the metallic taste fills my mouth and leaks down my chin.

She's beautiful when she's angry and rumpled like this with my blood on her lips and staining her teeth. But not as beautiful as she is when she's beside Sasuke, acting more like a possession than the strong, independent woman she was briefly. Because beside him is where she's happiest.

"I love Sasuke," she says in a low, trembling voice. "How dare you try to ruin that for me!"

She spits on the ground and wipes her mouth as she backs away. "Don't come to the wedding. Don't even come _near _me ever again!"

I was proud of this girl once. But not anymore.

I'm not proud of myself much these days either.


	3. Promise

8th April 08

Rating: T

* * *

03. **Promise**

The distant crashes and explosions echoed around the forest like distant thunder. Every time the grass shook and the leaves quivered, Sakura trembled a little, hoping that it was just her imagination that the sounds of warfare were drawing nearer.

Around fifty other Konoha ninja were crouched in the hidden trench alongside her, all of them as anxious and silent as her. Eventually the order would come to push forward and engage the enemy after the last wave had been crushed. It was very likely that everyone here would die today. Shikamaru had done the calculations and his findings had been so dismal that he'd refused to give the exact odds of their survival, reasoning that it would crush morale and drive down the odds even more.

Their job today was not to win and survive, it was simply to stall. They just needed time for Naruto's mission to work, but it was not unlike throwing down your body before a speeding train in order to slow it down. The cause was noble, considering that the fate of Konoha itself was on the line, but Sakura's knees felt like jelly and her stomach was cramped with butterflies. Holding a weapon was difficult when your fingers tingled with fear and your palms were drenched in cold sweat. Every time she heard someone speak nearby she flinched, terrified it was the order to move out. She had to keep reminding herself that the order would only come from the man listening at the radio further down the trench, and he hadn't moved in eighty minutes.

The squad leader passed by every now and then in his long, waterproof cloak, making sure everyone was ready and on their toes, occasionally stopping to console some of the younger, more inexperienced fighters. It made Sakura feel slightly ashamed. She'd been a chunin for many years and experienced more than most jonin in that time, but the unavoidable prospect of facing her own mortality was destroying her nerves.

The leader stopped in front of her, and Sakura squeezed her eyes shut, wishing he would just keep moving. However, she was beginning to hyperventilate a little. Her fear was obvious.

"You need to relax," he said, crouching down before her.

"We're going to die," Sakura said through gritted teeth.

"Yes," he admitted. "But you need to relax."

"Easy for you to say, Kaka-sensei," she snapped. "You're drunk. I can smell it all over you."

"Would you like some?"

"Yes…" she whispered. Why not? It would slow her reactions and kill her balance, but since she was going to die anyway, she'd rather go with nerves seduced by liquid courage.

Kakashi sat down next to her and produced an already half-drunken bottle of brown liquid. Not being much of a drink connoisseur, Sakura had no idea what it was, but it tasted vile and burned every inch of her oesophagus. It was just what she needed.

"I don't mind dying," she said to him as her insides softened. "I just don't want to do it quite so soon. I'm too young."

"People have died younger," he reasoned as she passed the bottle back to him.

"But I still have so much to live for," she murmured. "There's still so many things I haven't done. I wanted to get married, and have children, and live in a proper house, and keep a cat. I really wanted a cat. I thought I had all the time in the world for that stuff, so I never rushed it."

Kakashi nodded, tugging down his mask just enough to tip back another mouthful of liquor. "Never put off tomorrow what you can get done today, or else you'll be plagued with regret until you die – which means at least you won't be plagued for very long."

Sakura hugged her katana to her chest and stared morosely at the opposite wall of the trench. "I've never even had sex."

"It's not that great," he told her.

"I don't believe you."

"Alright… it's pretty awesome." He passed her back the bottle because she was beginning to look depressed again. "Finish it."

She picked at the torn foil around the bottle's neck. "I've never even kissed anyone," she said glumly. "How sad is that? I'm going to die tonight and I've never felt a man's mouth against mine."

"Yeah, that's pretty sad," Kakashi said thoughtfully, rubbing his lips. "But remedied easily enough."

She turned her head to him to ask him what he meant, and he chose that moment to list over and press an alcohol soaked kiss to her mouth. Sakura didn't move, but for a moment she forgot her despondency as she wondered at how soft and warm his lips felt against hers, and not nearly anything like she'd imagined. It was short and chaste, but a little moist, and when he moved back, she pressed her fingers to her mouth in awe.

"Will that do?" he asked.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered, amazed.

"Oh, please. You were angling for it."

Sakura only drained the last of the liquor and then gasped into the night air as she struggled to draw air into her burning throat. "Did I mention that I've never had sex?" she wheezed.

"If only there was time," he said, looking around the trench. "And I think people might start getting jealous, and then I'd have to have sex with _everyone_."

"Ok." She'd only been teasing, but now she felt infinitely better than she had a moment before. She was still shivering and scared to death, but Kakashi had made her smile.

Kakashi sighed and reached out a muddy hand to squeeze her shoulder and give her cheek the smallest of strokes with the back of his finger. "Tell you what though," he said. "If we get through this alive, I'll personally marry you and do all that other crap too."

Now Sakura laughed. "You're just saying that because you know we'll die."

"No, I'm saying it because I'm drunk."

"Then I'll hold you to it."

A few minutes later, the communications agent stirred from his position next to the radio and gave the grim news that it was time to press forward. Everyone stood with silent resolve and together climbed out of the trench to slip away into the dark forest where they would meet the enemy at last.

Sakura awoke in hospital two weeks later with a broken leg and a bruised head. She'd been one of the lucky ones, they said. The mission had been a success and Konoha had been saved. The sacrifice of all those men and women had not been in vain.

But all Sakura cared to know was Kakashi's fate. Had he made it? Was he alive? Was he injured? Was he lying in one of the mass graves being eaten by worms and bacteria beside scores of other bodies?

The nurses didn't know. "No Hatake Kakashi has been admitted to this hospital, miss," they told her, and from their tone, Sakura could only assume the worst. She lay in her hospital bed for the rest of the day, tears leaking slowly down her temples and not feeling nearly so glad to have survived anymore. The last thing she could really remember was that kiss he had given her, and that stupid promise he made to do all those stupid things with her that she regretted not being able to do.

When the door slid open, she hastily wiped at her tears, not wanting the nurses to see her in such a state. But when she glanced over to identify her visitor, a sob caught in Sakura's throat and her tears ran afresh.

"I heard you finally woke up," Kakashi said as he pulled a chair closer to her bedside. "I'm glad."

Sakura gave a wobbly smile through her tears. "You're alright?" There wasn't even a mark on him.

"I'm quite proficient at drunken fist fu," he said with all apparent seriousness. Sakura wasn't sure if he was joking or if that was really how he'd made it through that horrible night without so much as a scratch. She examined his form, but the only difference in his appearance was that perhaps his jacket was a little lumpy. And squirming a little too. But perhaps that was just the tears distorting her vision?

"Sakura," he began carefully. "You know that promise I made you?"

She nodded. "It's ok. I know you only made it because you were drunk and I was dead meat, so I won't hold you to it or anything-"

Kakashi held up his finger in a command to wait a moment while his other hand began to unzip his vest. To her astonishment, a small, furry ginger head popped out to mew at Sakura. "I had to smuggle him in," he said, lifting the tiny kitten onto an already love-struck Sakura's chest. It was no bigger than his hand. "Do you like him?"

"He's beautiful!" Sakura gasped, scratching her finger lightly behind one enormous pink ear.

"I can always keep my promises. Just… one step at a time, ok?"


	4. Feet

29th July 2008

Rating: T

* * *

04. **Feet**

It had been a dull evening in the restaurant so far. It was always fun surviving a mission, and the tradition after a big S-class mission was to find the most expensive restaurant in town, enjoy a slap-up meal, and figure out ways to stick each other with the bill. The entirety of Team Kakashi was there, along with Team Ino-Shika-Chou, Kurenai, and Anko.

Anko was fairly good fun once you got to know her. Some of her jokes were a little bawdy and her table manners left something to be desired, but nevertheless she was a beautiful woman – in a cutthroat sort of way. Kakashi didn't mind sitting opposite her, only she _would_ keep putting her foot in his lap.

"The thing you've got to remember about men, little one," she was saying to Sakura who had the mixed fortuned of sitting next to Anko, "is that all men are selfish, single-minded and simplistic. You only have to scratch them behind the ears and give them a biscuit and they're all yours. Pathetic."

She finished with a hearty swig of Shochu and the foot in Kakashi's lap wiggled suggestively against his crotch. "Surely, you're too hard on us obviously inferior men," Kakashi said. He hadn't touched his drink yet, partly because it would require removing his mask and partly because it was not wise to consume alcohol around this woman. "Personally I find women too baffling and complex and contrary. They say they want one thing, but they always mean something else and then get angry when you can't read their minds."

"That's because we expect you to understand how we really feel regardless of what we say," Sakura injected, her cheek resting on her hand. "If we say we don't really mind you leaving up the toilet seat or you not showing an interest in how our day was, we expect you to see that we really _would_ like you to set the toilet seat right and show an interest in our day, and that you shouldn't have to be _told_ so."

"Huh." Kakashi scratched his cheek. "Mystery solved then, I guess."

The foot slid along his inner thigh in an enticing manner, before coming to press firmly once more against his crotch. Anko leered at him over her drink. No one else seemed aware of the exchange. There were nine people along this table, but all of them were far too wrapped up in their own conversations to notice that Kakashi was being silently molested beneath the table.

He reached down and gave one of her toes a soft pinch, hard enough to make the foot retreat back to his knee.

For now.

"Kakashi-kun, you're not touching your drink," Anko admonished.

"I'm a light-weight," he said. "It's not a good idea to start drinking early in the evening. Maybe later?"

"Mm. Later indeed." Anko winked at him, and the foot curled around his calf, stroking up and down.

"I've never seen Kakashi-sensei drunk," Sakura mused seriously. "What kind of drunk are you? The kind that gets on the table and starts singing songs? I'd like to see that."

"More like the kind that quietly falls asleep in the corner," he replied.

The foot in his lap paused. "Well that's no fun," Anko declared. "Next you'll say you don't get hangovers."

"I don't."

"Oh, that's pathetic," Anko uttered in disgust and moved to down another mouthful of her drink. When she found her bottle empty she swore. "I'm going to get more drinks. Who else needs a refill?"

She took everyone's order, then stood up and went to the bar.

The foot skimming Kakashi's thigh remained.

It dawned on him a little slower than perhaps it should have, considering he was perfectly sober and alert. His gaze inched to Sakura, the only person left sitting across from him who was looking at him while running her finger around the rim of her glass. Equally gradually, she smiled at him knowingly.

He looked at her empty glass and then back at her. His breath hitched as her foot slid dangerously close to his crotch again. "How drunk are you?" he asked carefully.

She blinked slowly. "Very."

"Oh, good." And he let her continue.


	5. Observations

22nd August 2008

Rating: T

* * *

05. **Observations**

It was a mission like any other – Kill The Evil Daimyo for the Poor Oppressed Villagers. I don't really like these assassination missions, but me, Sakura and Sasuke have been jonin for a few years now and we've taken several lives one way or another, so it gets easier. It was a tough mission too – S-class, and it cost the villagers a bomb. They'd been pooling their money for three years in order to pay for the mission, but Kakashi took only half of what they offered. He often undercharges poor people, and no one really minds, except Sakura, who gives him an annoyed look whenever he does it because Konoha _needs_ that money and she always complains about budget cuts at the hospital. But its ok. Because he regularly overcharges the rich clients.

We were on our way home, travelling at our own pace because it was hot and we were all kinda tired. Only Kakashi was injured; he had a small, oozing gash that bisected his right eyebrow that left him wiping blood out of his eye constantly.

I think this is when I first noticed something was up, but I couldn't decide whose problem it was. Sakura commented on Kakashi's cut and offered to heal it. Kakashi politely refused, saying he was ok. I didn't really pay that much attention to what was going on until eventually I realised that the two of them had stopped on the road behind me and were now having an argument in those hushed, angry, 'we're not having an argument' kind of tones. Or Sakura was having an argument and Kakashi was doing his best to wheedle out of it.

They talked in hisses and whispers so it was hard to catch anything they said. I definitely caught things like "you're being unreasonable" and "it's not a problem" or "I wish I could take it back if I knew you would be like this about it."

Gradually they seemed to realise that they were being watched, and the argument died just like that. Sakura tucked her hair behind her ear and said loudly for us all to hear, "Well, it's your loss," and then went striding on.

Kakashi wiped blood from his eye and went on too. They both passed between Sasuke and I and there was a definitely a 'mind your own business' sort of look from both of them.

"What was that about?" I wondered when they were far enough ahead to be out of earshot. "She's the medic, she's _supposed _to heal our injuries."

"That's not what it was about," Sasuke said. "Obviously."

I looked at him. "Then what was it about?"

Sasuke just gave me a deadpan look and said, "Idiot." Which I think meant he didn't know.

I didn't really notice anything like that again for another week. We have training sessions every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and it was on the Friday session outside the village (we'd kinda outgrown the inner-village training grounds) that I noticed Sakura was out of sorts.

Kakashi had paired us off as he usually did, although normally it was me and Sasuke against him and Sakura. But all of a sudden today he thought it was time to switch partners to keep us on our toes. I got Sakura and he got Sasuke.

I was sort of glad, because I would rather have Sakura on my team than have her on Sasuke's, but at the same time I knew we would probably lose, because we were now up against three sharingan combined. It couldn't get much worse than that, but it did.

Sakura was useless. We chose our base beneath the shadow of a outcropping rockery, and I tried to talk strategy with her but she wasn't really interested. The only way to get the upper hand on sharingan-users is to take them from behind, and I was pretty sure that Sakura agreed to this strategy, but the moment we moved out she went her own way. Within minutes she'd been tagged by Sasuke, and she threw a fit that he'd cheated, or it wasn't fair, or something like that. The moment Kakashi appeared, she turned on him like it was his fault.

He said quite calmly, "Sakura, go home and clear your head."

She didn't like that, but she left all the same, and the silence she left behind was awkward.

"What was that about?" I asked aloud.

Sasuke gave me that 'you're an idiot' look again, but Kakashi just shook his head and smiled like nothing was wrong. "She's ok. Let's continue."

Without a partner, they hammered me.

But anyway, that was really just the beginning of it. After that I noticed that Sakura was in a different mood. And it wasn't just temporary so I knew it wasn't… _that time of the month. _It went on and on, and I don't think I'd ever seen her so depressed since Sasuke disappeared that first time. One time I think I caught her crying in a hospital closet but she just brushed it off as something in her eye and refused to tell me what was wrong.

I was so bewildered that I brought it up the next time I went to Ichiraku with Kakashi. I'd already tried mentioning it to Sasuke, but he just made like the answer was obvious and told me nothing, so all I had to fall back on was Kakashi. He sat stirring his bowl of ramen, as he usually did for about ten minutes before eating because he didn't like it hot. By the time he normally began eating, anyone eating with him had already finished, gotten bored, and pickled off. When I brought up the subject of Sakura, he paused his stirring and looked thoughtful.

"She has been out of sorts, hasn't she?" he murmured philosophically. "I wouldn't worry about it. It'll probably blow over in time… whatever's bothering her."

I got the impression that he wasn't too concerned; he was pretty blasé about the whole thing and quickly brushed it off to change the subject. But perhaps he was more concerned than he let on, because he went to see her the next day.

I know because _I _went myself and found him already on her doorstep talking to her. She looked like she'd been dragged out of bed backwards and still had her nightshirt on that was sliding perilously off one shoulder. When I appeared, they stopped talking and Sakura hastily righted her shirt as if she'd only just noticed. I knew I was interrupting because Sakura shot me a downright annoyed look and Kakashi wore an impatient frown that he levelled at Sakura's doorframe – I think because he was trying to restrain an urge to do me harm.

I'd only come to remind Sakura about the festival that night, so I quickly did just that and left. Or I pretended to leave. I was actually pretty curious about what they'd been talking about that had given them such serious expressions, so I stopped around the corner and listened intently.

But I'd missed the good part. All that was said after I disappeared was Sakura's angry mutter of "well, do you have any more excuses?" which was followed by Kakashi's equally cold murmur of "they're not excuses, they're reasons," which was punctuated by the slam of a door.

I peeked around the corner and Kakashi was still standing on her doorstep staring at the shut door. What had he said to her? Maybe he'd just told her to cool her head again and get her act together for the team's sake, but I think maybe it was more personal than that. I'd never really known him as someone who was good at consoling or handing out advice, and I think that stood true now. Whatever he'd said to Sakura had not done anything to make her feel better.

That was evidenced by how she failed to turn up to the festival. Ino, in her pretty blue yukata, was so annoyed that she announced she was going to march over to Sakura's apartment and drag the girl here whether she liked that or not. We let her get on with it, because Sakura can be a complete bear when you try to make her do something she doesn't want to, and the only one who can give bear!Sakura a run for her money is Ino. They're as terrifying as each other. I worried a little about Sakura, because she'd been acting so miserable lately and so reluctant to join in any kind of fun that I wondered if she would let herself waste away in her own apartment if we didn't drag her out of it occasionally. What the hell was the matter with her?

She turned up about an hour later with Ino, who'd shoved her into a royal red kimono with a white obi, and even though we tried to tempt her with a little goldfish catching, she didn't crack a smile once and bore all the fun and merriment with the manner of someone attending a funeral.

I began to enjoy myself though, after I found the candyfloss machine. I don't remember much after that point, until I woke up a little later in the park bushes, covered in dozens of toffee apple sticks. The festival was still going on a few hundred metres away by the sound of it, so I hadn't been out long. But when I found the beard of candyfloss on my face, I realised I had to cut down on the sugar.

Something had woken me. Because believe it or not, I was actually a ninja, and I knew instinctively that some small sound had brought me conscious, like a whisper of leaves or the crack of a twig. Something out of place. I heard hushed voices, so I carefully sat up, wiped the sugar drool from my mouth and peered around the tree behind me to see two figures standing in the shadows of the park. Behind them were the illuminations from the festival – all deep oranges and reds that made it difficult for me to make them out. But gradually I recognised their silhouettes, as well as their voices.

"This has got to stop," said the taller of the two, who sounded remarkably like Kakashi. "You're going to make yourself ill. Have you even eaten today? Or yesterday?"

"Don't pretend like you even care," retorted a female voice who was most definitely Sakura. "And don't flatter yourself. I'm not going to go on a hunger-strike over you of all people."

"I wasn't born yesterday, Sakura."

"I don't care. I just thought I'd better tell you first," said Sakura. "I'm going to get a transfer to another team."

"What? Why?"

Kakashi sounded as surprised as I felt. I thought about announcing my presence with a loud 'WHAT?!' at Sakura's words, but I remembered the frosty reception I'd got the last time I interrupted these two, and I knew I would probably find out what was bothering Sakura if I kept my mouth shut. I was sure it had something to do with Kakashi by now, or he at least knew about it.

"You _know _why," she replied to him. "I'm going to ask Tsunade tomorrow."

"I forbid it," Kakashi said shortly. "You don't belong in any team but this one."

"Maybe, but I can't be part of it any longer."

"Naruto and Sasuke will be upset."

"Oh, _Naruto_ and _Sasuke_ will be upset, will they?" she laughed a harsh, caustic laugh that I didn't like. It bordered on hysterical. "What about you?"

"Sakura, I'm sorry…"

"Not as sorry as I am! I wish I'd never said anything! I wish I could take it back, because then I wouldn't have to go!"

"You _don't _have to go," Kakashi rebuked. "You're just upset now, but in time-"

"No, I won't!" she cried. "I can't! I'm not like you! I can't shut off my feelings and pretend they don't exist! I love you and – please don't turn away from me like that, I _love_ you. And I know you don't like to hear it, but I do, and I can't_ be _in your team when I feel the way I do when you don't. I just can't. It's like _torture_."

Poor Sakura, I thought. She'd only gone and gotten herself another unrequited crush on a fellow teammate. This pretty much explained why she'd been so depressed lately. Perhaps she'd told Kakashi and it hadn't panned out…? Now she was heartsick and it was beginning to distract from her work. But surely there was a way to work this out? I didn't want her to leave the team.

Kakashi said something too quiet for me to hear.

"Well, I have to. We can't go on like this."

"No," he said, louder. "I _don't_ want you to go."

I think what he really meant was that he wouldn't let her. The next thing I knew, Sakura was stepping forward and reaching up to take his mask. I felt dread. She was going to try and kiss him! How embarrassing! She didn't honestly think he would let her, did she?

So imagine my surprise when he let her take down his mask (and it made no damn difference to me because it was still all in silhouette) bent his head to meet her kiss halfway.

I was confused. My teacher and my friend were kissing in the middle of the park in the middle of the night and I was in the middle of the bushes covered in sugar. Perhaps I was hallucinating from the biggest sugar rush in my life, because I just couldn't fathom how any of this could be _real_. I could imagine Sakura having a crush on Kakashi, because she's like that… but why the hell was Kakashi kissing her back if he was an unrequited crush?

I think this was deeper than my brain could go.

It was kinda gross actually. They were kissing passionately, like lovers, and I could hear the wet noises all the way from where I was sitting. Added to the fact that the sugar wasn't sitting well in my stomach, and I was beginning to feel a little queasy.

Finally they stopped kissing and just sort of held each other, like two dramatic star-crossed lovers which you normally see in films. Which is silly, because they're just two normal people and I don't get what's so dramatic and complicated about this.

"No one will understand, Sakura," Kakashi said, slightly out of breath. "This will cause trouble. I told you before… we _can't_-"

"Don't talk about that just now," she whispered. "Just hold me a little while like this."

That wasn't good, because I was going to have to interrupt soon in a very obnoxious way – and by that I mean throw up noisily and alert them to my presence. I didn't think that would make a good impression so I lumbered to my feet and came out from behind the tree.

Sakura saw me first and gasped guiltily as she threw herself away from Kakashi. Even through the darkness I saw Kakashi turn to me and _felt_ him give me that same glare of restrained impatience as he fixed his mask.

I wanted to say something profound and perfect that would rectify this whole situation – something that would make Sakura happy again and Kakashi not such a hard-up tight-ass. But my evening of sweetly indulgence was beginning to catch up with me and all I could manage to blurt out was "Seriously, Kakashi-sensei, I thought you were gay," before I had to stumble away through the trees to find a quieter place to relive my treats.

The next time I saw Sakura she was smiling. The dark cloud that had been following her around for days was nowhere to be seen and she almost literally glowed with happiness and contentment. I liked that better than the misery-guts she'd been before, so I didn't particularly mind that she was with Kakashi. As long as it wasn't Sasuke, I could tolerate it.

"But what happened?" I asked her.

"Kakashi has realised that people will understand," was all she said, and from that I knew everything would be ok. "But," she added, "he asked me to tell you that he's all man and he has no idea how you ever thought otherwise."


	6. Fraud

3rd August 2009

Rating: T

* * *

06. **Fraud**

They were nothing more than Konoha's pet science projects; the sons and daughters of kunoichi who had been given the controversial missions of procuring bloodline limits from clans beyond the village. The practise was as old as the shinobi profession, but a closely guarded secret all the same. Select few knew or understood what went on. Fewer still were involved.

_Subject #8_ was progressing quite nicely. He was exhibiting the fundamental traits of the bloodline limit of the northern Yumi clan whose natural affinity to animals meant every insect, every bird, and every mammal, reptile, or fish could be turned on an enemy, including the working animals being used by enemies. The Hokage would be pleased, Kakashi thought drolly, as he finished jotting down his assessment on the file in his lap. In the empty academy classroom there was little to disturb him from work, but at this rate he still wouldn't be out of there by three.

He looked at his watch and sighed. Trust Subject #5 to hold everything up.

Almost as soon as he thought it, the door to the classroom burst open and said Subject #5's mother hurried in, dragging a small shadow in her wake. "I'm sorry!" she gasped. "Shoe problems!"

That probably explained the wellies the little pink-haired girl behind her was wearing on an otherwise perfectly dry and sunny spring day. Kakashi made no comment. He closed the file he was working on and opened another, then indicated the chair opposite him.

"It won't take long," he told her, who barely attended him as she fussingly ushered her daughter into the chair and confiscated the drab tiger doll she'd been carrying under her arm. She handed it back instantly when the girl squeaked in protest.

"Be good," she said to the little girl, stroking her hair and cheeks affectionately. "This man would just like to ask you a few questions and do some tests, but I'll be right outside. You remember Kakashi-sensei, don't you?"

The girl stared at him and nodded slightly. He was surprised. Only about half the subjects remembered him from last year. The rest had done their best to forget him.

"Be _good_," she impressed on her daughter again, before shooting Kakashi another apologetic look. The little girl turned in her chair to watch her mother walk away and then put her chin on the backrest to watch the door long after she had disappeared from sight. Kakashi got the impression she would rather do that than look at him.

"Haruno," he prompted, turning his attention back to the file in order to locate the relevant sections. "You started school last September?"

The girl turned back in her chair to fix her enormous eyes on him and nodded.

"How are you finding it?" he asked her.

She nodded again, then seemed to realise this wasn't the correct response. With her tiger in the vicinity of her mouth she let her attention wander the room. "Don't like it," she mumbled.

He raised an eyebrow. "What don't you like about it?" he asked, folding his arms and propping his chin in his palm.

She seemed to get shrink in her chair. "The boys are always pushing people."

"Do they push you?"

Her head nodded.

"Do you them push back?"

Her head shook.

"Start doing it." He addressed his notes again. "Iruka-sensei says your best subject is maths?"

She nodded.

"And your worst is music. Why's that?"

She shrugged. "Boring."

Kakashi sighed and made another note. "You need to work harder. You've at least practised the exercises we talked about the last time I saw you?"

The girl just kicked her heels against the legs of her chair. That probably meant 'What exercises?' He held back another sigh and went rummaging through the folder again. Hadn't her mother bothered instilling the importance of these tests onto her? They were the reason for her _existence, _after all. "You're behind the rest of the subjects, Haruno. Number three has already demonstrated shape-shifting abilities, and number four has mastered factor three earthquakes. You, on the other hand, are not even practising your exercises. By the time he was your age, your father could already sing an entire aria and by the time he was ten he could cause avalanches and landslides with his voice alone. By the time he was fifteen, he could bring entire armies to their knees with a single note."

She sniffed and wiped her nose with her tiger. "What's an avalanche?"

Kakashi levelled a hard look at her. "Have you ever seen snow slide off the roof? It's like that, only it can happen on mountains and bury thousands of people alive in seconds."

"My daddy was a good ninja then?"

Kakashi looked down at his notes with a frown, but he wasn't seeing them. "I didn't meet him, though by his reputation he was a strong ninja, yes," Kakashi told the girl. "But you won't reach his level if you don't start practising."

She nodded glumly.

"What songs do you know?" he asked her.

"Ohh.... um..." She looked at the ceiling, her shoulders hunched forward. "Itsy Bitsy Spider...?"

He closed his eyes and prayed for strength. "How does that go?"

The little girl sucked in a huge breath and began to sing. _"Itsy Bisty Spider, climbed up the __water spout~ Down came the rain... and... and washed the spider out and... and if one green sausage should accidentally fall~ there'll be no green sausages sitting on the wa-"_

"Ok, please stop," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You switched songs halfway through. And it's bottles, not sausages."

She looked at him in innocent confusion. "That's how it goes."

"I gave you ten songs to memorise last time. Do you even remember a single one?"

She began chewing on the ear of her tiger, making no comment.

"Why hasn't your mother been making you practise?"

"She says I should just be what I want to be," the little girl said quietly. "She says I'm a good kunoichi even if I'm not special like everyone else."

Kakashi stared at her until she looked away and began squeaking her wellies together. He gave her a short command to stop and located the strip of paper he'd been looking in the file. He held it out to her. "Take this," he said.

She took it cautiously. Like most of the children, she regarded him with a little fear. Especially when he snapped "Don't tear it," when her sticky little fingers began absent-mindedly began twisting the paper.

"You know what chakra is, don't you? Good. Try to channel some into that paper while I go have a word with your mother."

The girl jumped in alarm. "Please don't tell her I'm bad!"

"She already knows," he said flippantly. "Start channelling."

He left her staring intently at the blank piece of paper and stepped out into the corridor outside. Her mother was sitting on the floor with her back to the wall, chewing her thumbnail anxiously, and in many ways he still felt she was too young in body and mind to have had a child six years ago. She looked up at him with great trepidation as he carefully shut the door behind him to keep her daughter from overhearing them.

"Well?" she asked him.

"Her musical scores are well below average," he said simply, looking through the window in the door. "She's smart but underachieving, and far too easily bored. I think she's eating that paper too."

"Ah..."

"Why haven't you been pushing her to maintain her exercises?" he asked, cutting to the heart of the problem.

"I have! I got her the damn violin you recommended last April and she sawed away at it for a week before she cut off the strings, filled it with dirt, and planted daisies in it."

Kakashi rubbed a hand over his face. "Any luck?"

"No, they died after a week. And that was a _damn_ expensive instrument."

"The village covers all her costs. You know that."

"But if she's not developing the bloodline limit... I feel like I'm committing fraud by withdrawing funds for her."

He sighed and turned away from the window to lean against the door and fix her with a level look. "Sakura," he said softly. "They made you go out and conceive that man's child. If Konoha's mission isn't bearing fruit, that's not your fault, and you're entitled to the money as much as any other woman whose child _did _develop the intended abilities."

He looked back through the window at the little girl. "Besides, she's still a sound investment as far as the village is concerned. She may not manifest, but her children might."

"I don't know. It's pretty painful listening to her singing Baa Baa Blacksheep. She might have already manifested for all I know." Sakura said drolly.

"She's not going to manifest and you know it." Suddenly Kakashi pushed open the door. "_Haruno!_"

The girl, caught red-handed rifling through the files on his chair, quickly darted back to her seat. Kakashi closed the door again. "She's naughty," he added to his list of criticisms.

"She's spending too much time with Naruto," Sakura admitted. "Maybe you should babysit occasionally? You'd whip her into shape in no time."

Kakashi shook his head. "She doesn't like me."

"She's six, Kakashi. She dislikes boys and baths, but that's about it. Everything else fascinates the hell out of her," Sakura told him. "I think she's a little in awe of you, actually. Naruto has told her a lot of stories about you."

Through the glass he could see she'd lost interest in the paper he'd given her and was now crawling around the floor, pushing her tiger along like a train, complete with _choo choo _noises. Lack of musical talent was not even scratching the surface of this child's issues. "She's very much your daughter, isn't she?"

Sakura pulled a face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"No one could mistake her, could they? She looks exactly like you. Except for her eyes... she has her father's eyes."

Sakura looked away down the school corridor uncomfortably. "Yes..."

Her daughter was now making the tiger fly over to the piano in the corner of the classroom and had it prance over the black and white keys. Kakashi held his breath. But no... all he heard was the unharmonious clang of a musically challenged brat.

And briefly he was rather glad.

"Don't blame yourself," he said to Sakura quietly. "Danzou asked too much of you, and if the village had the wool pulled over its eyes, so be it. You did what you had to in order to escape that situation before the mission destroyed you. If there's any fraud, it's as much my fault as yours..."

She turned sad, green eyes on him. "I'm sorry..."

For a moment he said nothing and just watched the child play, oblivious to the cruel nature of her creation, and all the hopes the administration had pinned on it. It didn't seem fair, but that was the life of a ninja. Rarely was it 'fair'.

Kakashi rolled his shoulders with a sigh and turned to Sakura. "Your daughter's failed the meet the standard again," he said with even professionalism. "I'll give you another list of exercises to practice on, and I'll see her again next year for an update on her progress... if she's made any."

Already resigned to the conclusion of this assessment, Sakura just nodded glumly and followed Kakashi back into the classroom. "Hana-chan, time to go," she called as Kakashi went to re-organise the scattered papers on his chair.

The little girl cheered up immensely to see her mother again – or just to hear the meeting was over – and she clattered across the room in her over-large wellies, holding her arms out to be picked up. Sakura scooped her up with practise ease and set her on her hip. "Say goodbye to Kakashi-sensei," she admonished.

Her daughter turned those big grey eyes on Kakashi again, wary and shy, and exactly like his own. "Bye..." she whispered through her tiger.

"Remember to practise," he warned her a little menacingly, knowing this would only motivate her for the next week or two at most.

She hid her face in her mother's neck and Sakura gave Kakashi a mildly exasperated look with the tiger squashed under her ear. "I'll see you next week?"

"The rice mission?"

"Don't be late." She turned and walked away as a set of grey eyes peeped at him over her shoulder. Kakashi waved half-heartedly until they vanished out the door.

He looked down at the unfinished report on Subject #5, Haruno Hanako, and wondered how delicately one could sum up the least promising child who'd come before him. Picking up his pen, he let his eyes wander the room for inspiration and stopped when he noticed the small slip of chakra paper he'd given to the girl. It was lying in the chair opposite. From two of its edges spiralled jagged creases, like forks of lightning.

Not many children twice her age could activate the paper... and certainly none of the other subjects had managed today.

Kakashi smiled to himself and folded the paper into his pocket. Then he began to write his report.


	7. Dimples

9th August 2009

Rating: T

* * *

07. **Dimples**

Sakura was enjoying a nice Saturday morning stroll when she saw the naked man. She didn't notice him at first. The street was busy, full of people doing their early grocery shopping or heading off to work. Sakura always had free weekends away from hospital shifts so she planned to go down to Ino's flower shop and torment the blonde girl over her crush on Sai before buying a new bunch of sunflowers to replace the dying lilies on her kitchen windowsill. Or maybe she'd go for orchids this time?

It was as she musing over her flower options that she noticed people further up the street were parting – even running into shops. Sakura couldn't immediately see what was going on; a woman with a small boy were standing in her way. But soon the mother too gave a cry of shock and horror, clapped a hand over her son's eyes, and scurried to the side of the street.

And that was when Sakura saw the naked man approaching. _Oh boy,_ she thought, about to discreetly move to the side of the street, feigning unnatural interest in the window of an antique shop until he passed. At that moment, however, her gaze slid over his face and she stopped dead.

She knew that scar... that perpetually closed eye... that awful shaggy hair...

_Oh... boy..._

Sakura could no longer move. Rationally, she knew she ought to jump down the nearest manhole before he saw her and – too late – his casually roving eye landed on her too and he smiled a smile she had _literally_ never seen before. Dimples creased his cheeks. "Morning," he called with all the bright nonchalance of a man who couldn't have known he was naked.

"Morning..." she whispered back weakly.

"Nice weather today, isn't it?" He stopped next to her and looked up at the sky, searching for clouds. "Might get a bit nippy later on though, hm?"

Sakura was staring at his chest. She couldn't quite kid herself that she could feign such indifference to his state of dress as to look him in the eye, but she had to battle pretty damn hard to keep her eyes above his navel. It was like fighting the urge to breathe.

"Going anywhere interesting?" he asked conversationally.

Sakura suddenly became rather worried he might offer to accompany her. "Oh – no," she said wheezily, "No, no, not at all... uh... you?"

"Work."

She spluttered. "You're going to work?!"

"The bills don't pay themselves, I reckon."

"You're going to get fired if Tsunade-sama sees you like that!" she cried out, as a woman crossing the street behind him gave a shriek and began to run away, screaming something about perverts.

"Like what?" he asked, as if genuinely puzzled.

"You're... you're... notwearinganyclothes, sensei!" she hissed, feeling her face turn as red as her shirt.

"Ah," he said tilting back his head to look down at her with an air of superiority. "That's where you're wrong, Sakura."

She stared at him, nonplussed.

"For you see, I _am_ wearing clothes. The finest clothes ever made, in fact, but it just so happens that these clothes are _so_ fine, that only those of purest heart and swiftest intelligence can see-"

"_Don't_ give me that crap! You're naked!" Giving him a soft push in the chest. It was something she did quite often when he rattled off a lame lie, but this time it felt rather weird. She wasn't used to her hands connecting with warm flesh and short, rough chest hair. She felt herself turning even hotter in the face as Kakashi just looked down at her curiously, and she wondered how _she_ could be the only one who was embarrassed here. "_Why _are you naked?"

"Ah, well," he said. "If you want my advice, Sakura, don't ever take Gai up on his challenge to ask the most women out and receive the most positive answers in a three day period. I might have underestimated him a little. Or overestimated the taste of Konoha's women. Seriously, Sakura, there's a lot of weirdoes in this village."

She looked at him standing there in the middle of a street with nought but his birthday suit on, oblivious to the gaping stares peeping out from behind windows, doorways and lampposts all around them. "Too right," she muttered. "So you lost a bet."

"Yes, and now I have to go to work with no clothes," he sighed.

"Tsunade's still going to fire you," Sakura warned seriously.

"Ohh, I'll just tell her I'm having a breakdown. She'll be very understanding," he said with an amused smile. "But she's a very mature woman either way. I'm sure she's seen quite a few penises in her time, and none as nice as mine."

Oh god. Her teacher had just said 'penises'. Life as she knew it was over. Sakura felt her mouth go dry as she resolutely stared at his chest. Kakashi cocked his head slightly. "You can have a look if you want."

A white hot thrill ran down her spine. "What?" she jerked out. Her brain felt like it had crashed into a wall.

"It won't bite."

"I – uh – thank you, but _no_ thank you. I have absolutely no desire to... um... look at that..." And quite suddenly, she lost the battle and looked down automatically at the very thing she was gesturing to. Her eyes flew wide.

_Ohboy ohboy ohboy ohboy ohboy-_

The world had a new unit of measurement. And it was of biblical proportions.

"Well," said Kakashi, after a long... _long _and _very _awkward pause where she just stared at his crotch with her mouth hanging open as if she'd been frozen mid-sentence. "I have to be getting to work now."

"Mm..." grunted Sakura, still staring.

"I'll see you later, yeah?"

"Mm..."

"Then maybe you can show me yours since I showed you mine?"

That woke her up. "Now _really!"_ she began indignantly. "You can be such a pervert sometimes-"

"My eyes are up here, Sakura."

She jerked her eyes away at last. "I knew that."

He smiled at her again, cheeky and dimpled. "I'll see you around."

She'd see him around too... although mainly because his visage was now burned onto the back of her eyelids for the rest of her life. He turned with a wave and loftily strolled away again, still indifferent to the people scrambling to avoid him, and oblivious to the poor women walking into trees and tables as he passed. them

And as she watched him go, Sakura realised he had more than one set of dimpled cheeks.


	8. Adrenalin

16th November 2009

Rating: M

* * *

08. **Adrenalin**

When the building exploded, the last thing he remembered before being thrown backwards into darkness was Sakura's scream.

The brief lapse into unconsciousness didn't last long, and he quickly became aware that he was falling. His clothes and hair were burning and the flash of the explosion had washed his vision white. Wind rushed through his ears, drowning out the shrill ringing that made him feel like his head was vibrating.

His hands scrabbled uselessly at the steep incline he was tumbling down, trying to catch hold of something to stop his fall. But his descent was too fast and he could barely figure out what was up and what was down, let alone make out any decent handholds.

A branch or a root caught his shoulder, snapping his body one way while it still fell another. Another branch caught his head. The third one he grabbed, bringing his dizzying fall to a jarring stop that wrenched his arm clean out of the socket. But he didn't let go. There was no telling how far he had left to fall and what lay beneath him, so he clung on, trembling in pain and shock as he tried to get his bearings.

It was then that he realized one of his arms was actually on fire. And fire _hurt_. And trying to pat out a fire with a dislocated arm while clinging one handed to whatever it was he was clinging to was not his finest hour. With a grunt, his arm slipped and he plummeted once more.

More branches thrashed and scratched at him, and then suddenly with a hard, winded thump, he landed on his injured shoulder and it was over. The joint popped back into place with a dubious crunch, but he was too busy tearing away the smoldering material of his mask and sleeve to attend.

Then for a long moment he simply lay there panting, listening to the thrum of adrenalin rushing through his system at yet another momentary brush with the inevitability of death.

"…ow…" he remarked belatedly, taking stock of his situation.

Well, he'd gotten lucky. If he hadn't been thrown free he might have been crushed or burned to death in that building. But what about Sakura?

He hadn't seen her escape.

Instantly Kakashi was on his feet, ignoring the green vest that he left in a tattered heap on the forest floor. His hitai-ate had also been lost in the fall, and it was just as well. His normal eye could only relay to him an image of pulsing white nonsense – the sharingan was the only thing keeping him from bumping into trees and pinpointing his exact location.

He was below the manor. Looking up, he could see smoke billowing from the top of the cliff and make out little bits of flaming debris still falling.

He hoped Sakura wasn't part of that debris.

With his heart thumping in his throat, he staggered off through the trees, growing more steady on his feet the more he moved. The targets were all dead. He'd seen to that, so he felt no particular need to mask his presence.

"Sakura!" he yelled, ignoring the pain in his knee as he began climbing the steep hill. "_Sakura!_"

He anxiously weighed up the probabilities in his head. They'd both been caught in the blast, but she'd been closer to the source. He'd been standing against the wall that backed out onto the cliff. She'd been standing against the wall that backed out onto a corridor and another wall, and another room, and if she'd been thrown backwards, it was likely she was still trapped in the inferno that had once been a splendid manor.

In all probability… she was dead.

But Kakashi didn't want to accept that possibility, so he battled on through the foliage and bushes, calling out her name with growing panic. He could see the manor up ahead. If the girl had a lick of sense she would have crawled out by now and would be in range of his voice.

There was still no reply, even when he was so close to the burning building that he could feel the heat on his bare face. There were bodies littering the ground, but they'd been dead before the explosion. There were no new additions with pink hair.

"Sakura, answer me – _fuck _it!" The last expletive had been directed over the rock which had had the nerve to trip him up, sending him lurching against a tree. He slumped there for a moment, panting and watching the flames climbing higher. Panic seized his heart. If she was in there, she was dead. If he went in there to find her, he was dead too.

But he _could not_ sit here and do nothing. Sakura's cheeky, beaming face flashed through his thoughts. She was too young… she didn't deserve this… how would he ever explain to Naruto?

"Kakashi-sensei!"

His head snapped to the side and he stared off into the trees, his heart soaring.

There she was. Pink-haired, petite, and very singed, but more or less in one piece. She was stumbling through the trees, bumping into things and tripping, and behind her she was dragging an axe that had to weigh at least twice what she did. Undoubtedly she'd stolen it off one of the body count.

But she hadn't seen him.

"Sakura – over here!" he called hoarsely, getting to his feet.

He went unheeded, and she staggered onwards and away from him. "Kakashi-sensei!" she called, sounding upset and raw. "Kakashi, where are you?! Please-!"

She was deaf, he realized, or at least partially. He ran after her, but she didn't respond until he placed a hand against her shoulder, which was probably a mistake to do to a girl on the edge.

Immediately she swung around, bringing the axe with her. If Kakashi had been a fraction of a moment slower he would have lost his head. A few white hairs floated past his nose as the axe slammed into the tree beside him and lodged there.

"Sakura – it's me!" He shouted, leaping up to grab her by the arms before she could get her newfound weapon loose. "It's me."

Her eyes were a little too wide and glazed as she stared up at him without really seeing him. There was a large cut above her right eye that was streaming blood down her cheek, and he hoped to all available forces that the blow hadn't knocked anything loose inside that air-filled head. But she must have recognized his vague outline, or finally heard his voice, because suddenly she sagged in relief and her face crumpled into tears. "Oh, thank god!" she choked out, reaching out to run her hands along his shoulders and up to his face. Normally Sakura was not prone to such familiarity, but he understood the need to make sure the other was real.

After all, he noticed that he was running his hands along her arms with just as much need to affirm that the girl he saw before him was truly there.

"I thought you were dead for sure!" she squeaked, going up on tiptoes to throw her arms around his neck. "I saw you thrown backwards and over that cliff and I couldn't think of what I was going to say to Naruto. Thank god… I'm so glad. So glad."

And then she started to laugh. Relieved, joyous laughs that sounded like sobs to his ears, but it was the laugh of someone just so very pleased to be alive. Kakashi began to laugh as well. There was really nothing funny about their situation, but in times of great stress the reactions often didn't make complete sense. The adrenalin was still pumping through his veins; a potent mix of unpredictability and a natural high. Laughing didn't make sense, but it felt good, because he was so _relieved_.

And then she started to kiss him – or he started to kiss her – and that didn't make a lot of sense either. It was a pure, undiluted impulse alone. First a kiss to express the joy, as mere physical contact was not enough – and quickly that kiss grew and deepened into a manifestation of all the turbulence coursing through their bodies. Sakura made a sound close to a moan and that was it for Kakashi. Whatever reason, logic or rationality that had been present before was flung straight off the cliff in the same manner as himself. Suddenly all he could focus on was the young, willing and attractive girl in his arms and riding the wave of madness within him that demanded instant and complete sexual gratification from her.

That was if she didn't demand it of him first. Her hands were already groping for the button and the zipper of his pants, her leg lifting to hook behind his knee in a crystal clear invitation. Who was he to refuse? His blood sang with pent-up frustration and he knew that she suffered exactly the same way. He lifted her deftly by the hips, ignoring the sharp ache in his shoulder, and pushed her abruptly up against the same tree she'd savaged with her axe. Her head rolled back against the bark as if drunk and he took the opportunity to attack her throat, not even remotely concerned whether or not he left a mark. At the same time he was fumbling with her shorts, pushing them down over her hips. He didn't spare any niceties about undressing her. With one sandaled foot he caught the article of clothing that trapped her thighs together and pushed it down. Her underwear was less trouble. He simply caught the front in his fist and tore them off. The soft cry of surprise and desire from the girl made an uncontrollable shiver run down his spine.

Almost immediately her legs were around him, begging and coaxing. A moment after that and he was inside her, both of the gasping at the exquisite sensation. He heard her laugh in sheer delight and then moan as he slammed his hips hard against hers. The heat of her around him made his head spin. Nothing mattered but resolving the tension burning in the pit of his stomach.

She moaned against him, mumbling his title as she shuddered, and somewhere in the back of his mind alarm bells began ringing. _What are you doing? _He didn't heed them.

The pace was hard and deep. He wouldn't normally have been so rough but he needed it, and so did she. She moaned sweetly with every thrust, pushing against him desperately, matching his pace and containing the wildness of the act like she was made for just this. His hands squeezed her hips, pulling her tight into him each time until he was groaning with her, fast approaching the end.

_What are you doing?_

Louder this time, shaking Kakashi out of his daze. What _was_ he doing? He was in the middle of a battlefield. There were dead bodies only a few hundred yards away and ash was falling like snow through the trees from the smoking remains of the manor beyond them. The mission was barely over. And here he was, fucking his student against a tree…

Suddenly Sakura gave a harsh cry and arched against him. Nails pinched his back and her muscles clamped down around him in a frantic caress. He spit a curse and surrendered, unable to do anything more than grind her harder against him as his own release came in violent spurts, wrenching a hard groan from his throat at the shear intensity of the pleasure he found in her.

There was a new dull ringing in his ears now, which he was pretty sure was the sound left behind in the void where his sense of decency used to be. He was spent. Emotionally, physically, he was all used up. The pleasure and the adrenalin drained away, warmth being replaced by leeching coolness. It would only be a few more seconds before the calm gave Sakura time to think.

She was still breathing hard, but she was quiet with her head bowed. For a small painful eternity, he waited for her to react.

The hands on his shoulders tensed, pushing against him. When he didn't budge immediately, she shoved him again. "Get off," she said, and he could hear the panic rising in her voice. "Get off!"

He complied, before she decided to go ahead and punch the head clean off his shoulders. As soon as he'd given her enough room, she stumbled away, falling onto her hands and knees where she began searching blindly for her shorts. Kakashi couldn't bring himself to look at her or help. He slid slowly down to the base of the tree and pressed a hand over his eyes.

What the _hell_ had he done?

By the time he summoned the courage to look up again, Sakura was kneeling on the ground, huddled over and panting. Her shorts appeared to be on back to front, but it didn't seem entirely appropriate to point that out now.

"I think I'm going to be sick."

And then she hunched forward and was.

Kakashi could only stare at the torn pair of panties still in his hand.


	9. Poison

17th November 2009

Rating: T

* * *

09. **Poison**

Kakashi was a prime example of a Good Shinobi. He had abstinence down to perfection. He was not interested in gambling, he was not all that interested in sex (outside literature), and he had no predilection for any substance that could harm his health, be it smoking, drug abuse or alcohol consumption.

In all the years Sakura had known her sensei, she'd never known him to dabble in anything even remotely risqué, although she couldn't quite call him a prude. He was simply _not_ interested. The only way to get alcohol down his throat was to tell him it was tangy fruit punch.

"It's tangy fruit punch," Naruto said at the beginning of the evening. "You'll like it."

"It smells suspiciously like alcohol," he replied, sniffing the beverage.

"Yeah, because alcohol is fermented fruit!" Naruto rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, it's completely non-alcoholic. I read the bottle and everything."

Kakashi was far too trusting, or maybe he was just too tired to argue. He started to drink, and his students watched with delight as their sensei became inebriated for the first time in their lives and possibly the first time in _his _life.

But Naruto and Sasuke soon lost interest. Kakashi was not a fun drunk. He slowed down, and couldn't seem to find the energy to finish sentences or reply to questions.

"Kakashi-sensei! What's under your mask?" they would ask.

"Mask? I wear a mask?" would be his slow, slurred reply.

There was one upside to a drunk Kakashi, though. By the end of the evening he was stretched out snoring on Sasuke's sofa and completely unresponsive to even the hardest of pokes.

"This is it," Naruto said, and they all held their breath as he slowly reached out and began lowering Kakashi's mask.

As one, they released their breath.

"Well," Sakura said.

"Hm," Sasuke grunted.

"He looks a bit like that guy from accounting," Naruto remarked.

"Oh yeah," the other two murmured in agreement. "He does a bit."

The evening wore out and Sasuke eventually kicked them all onto the curb. Naruto and Sakura were left to decide between them who would take Kakashi home, and since Sakura lived closer to him, the responsibility fell on her. He couldn't walk in a straight line very well, so she wound up holding him by hauling his arm over her shoulders, and though he wasn't light, at least they made relatively swift progress.

"No, no," he mumbled, forcing them to stop. "I need to sit down."

"But we're nearly at your apartment," Sakura pointed out. She could see his window from here.

"I'll be sick if I take another step."

So she slipped him down into the shuttered doorway of a shop and sat down beside him as he folded his arms against his knees and hung his head against them. Not knowing quite what to do, she settled for rubbing his back lightly. Perhaps this was why he avoided alcohol? If it made Sakura nauseous like this, she wouldn't find the appeal in the stuff either, and now she felt a little guilty for helping to trick him.

"Will you be ok tonight?" she asked anxiously.

"Eventually," he mumbled into his arms.

She resumed rubbing his back.

"I don't like being drunk," he said at length.

Sakura sighed. "I can see," she murmured. "Are you always like this?"

"Nowadays." He leant back and the back of his head hit the metal grilling over the doorway. "I'm not as young as I used to be."

"The same could be said for anyone."

He inhaled deeply and held his breath. "I think I'm going to throw up, Sakura."

"Oh – h-hold on!" She scrambled away and seized the nearest empty plant pot that was lined up outside the shop and quickly shoved it into Kakashi's arms. He took down his mask, but he didn't wretch… instead he simply sat there, looking ill and unhappy with his eyes closed and his breathing deep. Even in the dim light of the streetlamps, he looked washed out.

"I'm never going to trust you kids again," he grumbled. "Ever."

"Sorry, sensei." She reached up and stroked his hair and in what she hoped was consoling.

She was slightly surprised when his head dropped onto her shoulder and he gave a soft whimper. "Sakura, you're a medic. Make it go away."

There was probably alcohol in his blood stream, like poison, and she could probably, theoretically, extract it in the same manner as poison. But… "I would have to cut your veins open."

He sagged more heavily against her.

"Maybe if you lie down you'll feel better?" she suggested.

Sakura didn't offer her lap, but he took it anyway as a pillow. She blushed slightly as his head settled on her thighs. He looked too pathetic, lying there in the middle of the street at night, clutching a flowerpot to his chest and a pained frown marring his brow to push him off. So instead she smoothed her hand over that brow and felt his hot, clammy skin beneath her cool fingertips, and gradually the frown faded.

"Poor sensei," she sighed softly.

"Poor me," he agreed.

And there he went to sleep.


	10. Death

20th November 2009

Rating: T

* * *

10. **Death**

"And.... so yeah, after that fiasco I decided I really needed to clean the fridge out more often. I never really got that smell out of the carpet. Ah well... that's someone else's problem now."

"Fascinating." Sakumo's chin had sagged into his upturned palm at least half an hour ago, if there was such a construct as time in this place. The fire crackled on steadily without being fed, which was just as well, because Kakashi didn't know where to even start looking for firewood. But he was beginning to see the sort of glazed look in his father's tired eyes that warned him he had managed to bore to death a dead man who'd been residing in an empty void for twenty-two years.

"Sorry, I know fridge anecdotes shouldn't really be making it into the final edit," Kakashi apologised. "I died young, so the story of my life is a short one. I need to pad it out somehow."

"Oh, short, but it was full. I'm glad for that at least." His father lifted his head and stretched out his clicking wrist. "In many ways you've accomplished more than I did. Although in others..."

Kakashi regarded the fire mutely, reflecting on his father's insinuation. Originally he'd been desperate to surpass the memory of his father, but that desire had matured and faded after experiencing what it cost him. His father had made it into twelve bingo books. Kakashi had been satisfied with seven. While his father held thirty-two black crosses for bravery; Kakashi held nineteen. His father had never _ever_ let a team-mate die. Kakashi had lost more than he cared to remember. There were still people who came up to him, thinking he was Sakumo or wondering who he was to share so many of a dead man's traits – people who knew his father but didn't know _him,_ and he doubted anyone would remember him just as vividly this long after his death, aside from his closest friends.

"I'm satisfied with what I was," he told his father quietly. "I may not have been a legend like you, but Naruto will be. As long as his name survives, my life will have meant something."

"Ah... that's not what I meant, Son," Sakumo said awkwardly. "What I mean is, you've accomplished so much since we parted ways... youngest jonin, leading your own ANBU squad by nineteen, heading your own division by twenty-three, becoming a teacher to such incredible young people at twenty-six... cleaning your fridge out at twenty-eight. I'm proud of you. But surely there is more to it than that?"

Kakashi gazed at his father with polite curiosity. "What do you mean?" He'd told his father everything. _Everything_. All his achievements, all his promotions, all his awards and his landmark missions. All of the best jutsu he'd learned, all the names of his dogs, all the friends he'd made, and all the ones he'd lost. Hell, he'd even told him of that painful time spent in an Iwa prison where he'd been lashed so many times his back had forever more become a criss-cross pattern of scars,

What else could there possibly be?

"I mean... haven't there been any _girls,_ Kakashi?" his father asked pointedly.

"Oh." Kakashi went very still and quiet.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty," he mumbled.

"When I was your age, I was already married and living with your mother. You were already on your way."

"Yes, Dad," he muttered.

"Do I have _any _grandchildren, Kakashi?" Sakumo asked hopefully.

"No, Dad."

"Well, why not?"

"If you'd wanted grandchildren so badly, you should have increased your odds by having more than one child, preferably not in the ninja profession," Kakashi retorted.

"That's not my fault – your mother died!"

"So did I!"

Sakumo sighed unhappily. "Fine. You at least had a girlfriend, didn't you?"

Kakashi scratched his arm and looked studiously away into the darkness.

"No girlfriend?" drawled his father.

"Not currently, no."

"Well... I'd like to hear about your last girlfriend then. Was she nice?"

Kakashi looked hard at his knees. "Oh, very nice."

"What was her name?"

Kakashi strained to remember. "Um... Ayume, I think."

"You think?"

Kakashi nodded.

Sakumo sighed. "How long ago was this?"

"About fourteen years, Dad."

"You're telling me you haven't had a girlfriend since you were sixteen?" Sakumo stared at him in utter horror.

"I've been busy," Kakashi replied defensively. "Girlfriends are hard work – they need attention and maintenance and things, and I just didn't have the time."

"Kakashi, when I was your age I was already a legendary nin and even _I _had time for sex-"

"I'm not saying I've never had sex," Kakashi said quickly. "That's something else though."

Sakumo calmed a little. "Alright.... who was the last girl you were, ah, _intimate_ with? Was she nice?"

Kakashi said nothing for several seconds. "When does the great beam of light come to take me on to the next world?" he asked hopefully.

His father shook his head. "It doesn't."

This was hell. It had to be. Only in hell would a man be trapped in an eternal void with his estranged father, talking about sex. "Maybe we should get more firewood? This thing looks like it's going out."

"It doesn't," his father repeated flatly. "Kakashi, you're the only piece of myself that I left behind on that earth. I want to know everything. I want to know what mattered to you. _Who_ mattered to you. Humour a poor old man, won't you? Tell me about the important women in your life? Please?"

He'd never known his father was so good at manipulation. Kakashi looked at him, the pathetic man who'd given up on life and now longed for it more than anything, and he saw how much it meant to him, or at least how much he was pretending it meant to him.

"Her name was Anko."

"Anko," his father beamed at him. "Uh... this wouldn't be the same Anko who was a rather feral six year old girl living in the park when I departed?"

"Yes, that's her."

"Was she... nice?"

"Not really, no."

"Incompatible spirits?"

"She nearly bit my nipples off."

"I see." His father pondered this very seriously. "Well, did you have any good relationships?"

"I told you, I didn't have relationships. I just had sex sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"Not very often..." Kakashi sighed.

His father looked at him long and hard while Kakashi kept his gaze levelled on the fire. "Has there been no one, Kakashi?"

"No one what, Dad?"

"You know what I mean. There has to be at least one person in your life who you cared about? Your life can't have been a series of casual, meaningless affairs – you _can't_ tell me there wasn't a single girl who you longed for more than any other. Who you're thinking of right now."

Kakashi watched the fire silently.

"Or," his father coughed awkwardly, "uh, any _man._ That's perfectly alright, Son, nothing wrong with that."

Hell. It was hell. "There's been no one, Dad," he said quietly.

Sakumo stared at him. "Then who are you thinking of right now? I can see it. You're telling me there's no one, but men who have lost no one do not look into the fire as if they've lost everything. Who did you leave behind, Kakashi?"

"It's not like that, Dad," he said, feeling small and pale and cold beside this lonely fire. "If there is a girl who stands out in my mind above all the others, it's not in the way you think. She's the most important girl in my life, but I never realised that until now. All I ever did... could do... was watch her. It's hard to think I'll never see her again. Can you watch the living from here?"

Sakumo shook his head slowly. "Even the living need their privacy."

"Maybe it's for the best. I don't think she'd want a dirty old man perving on her from the heavens, and maybe I don't want to see either... so many people died today, what if she barely notices I'm gone too?"

His father's chin sank into his palm again. "Who are we talking about here?" he asked. "Don't tell me you mooned over some girl and never even introduced yourself?"

"She knows me."

"Then why did you never say-"

"Because she's my student. She's young. She wouldn't understand. And I told you, it's not really like that; I never wanted her for myself." Kakashi ran a hand through his hair. "I admire her. Every year she becomes more beautiful and confident and wise and by the time she's twenty-five, yes, I'll probably be half in love with her. But it doesn't matter. By the time she becomes that woman, I'll be a distant and hopefully fond memory. Or maybe not. She hated my books."

"Books?"

"Yeah, the Icha Icha collection that..." His voice died as he patted down his pockets and remembered belatedly that he'd left his copy of _Tactics_ with the cryptography boffins to analyse Jiraiya's message. He'd died without it, and there probably weren't any bookshops in the afterlife.

Hell. This was definitely hell.

"Well, that's nice to know that at least one girl held your heart. That reassures me," his father sighed, though Kakashi got the distinct impression he was only reassured that it was a _girl_ after all. "It's not fair to go through a life so painful without knowing love."

"I know it, alright... but not anymore," Kakashi whispered into the firelight.

"I see," his father said heavily. "You've had your share of trouble too."

"Yeah..."

"But I never thought we'd both die so young," he went on. "Though not as young as your mother..."

Kakashi watched the fire snap and fizzle around the wood without ever seeming to consume it. His life was over, cut short in his prime like his father's, but they weren't the same. He'd died in defence of his village. His father had had a choice in the matter.

He'd once been angry about that. So angry he'd been eaten away with hate for years. Now he was glad the dead could not see what happened to the people the left behind because he couldn't bear the thought of his father thinking for a second that he'd been hated by his own son. But Sakumo was no fool. He must have suspected in those final weeks before he'd taken his life, expecting mindless release only to be trapped in this place.

He sighed deeply. "Regardless of what happened, you did the best you could. I understand now. You broke the rules for all our sakes."

His father's gaze turned on him slowly.

And Kakashi was glad to be dead and able to say what he'd been wanting to say since he was thirteen. "I'm proud of you now," he said softly into the fire.

Sakumo turned away again, silently considering his words before finally uttering a quiet and slightly uneven, "Thank you..."

Then his body gave a great lurch and eyes he hadn't realised were closed snapped open to the vivid blue of an enormous sky. He could still hear his father speaking in his ear, telling him it wasn't his time, that we was going to be with his mother... and then all he could hear was the wind tumbling through the surrounding hills of debris that had once been his home.

Kakashi bolted upright, ignoring the cries of shock and alarm from those around him. "What the hell happened?" he gasped.

* * *

That was a low, unpleasant ache that filled his chest as he meandered through the makeshift streets formed by rows of tents and emergency Tenzou Sourced Housing. Everything was gone. It would never be the same again, and even if no one person had been lost, Konoha was gone and everyone felt the sharp pain of loss as if they really had lost someone dear.

Kakashi was forced to resist the rush and hassle of repairs and organisation. A new Hokage had to be selected immediately with no prior warning, food and blankets had to be located for forty thousand displaced civilians, not to mention the sudden and very pressing need for around five thousand chemical toilets. Not even Tenzou could pop those out the ground.

He would have liked to help (although not with the toilets), but circumstances being what they were, he'd received the order that '_all deceased persons should make their way to medical tent B24_' and had no choice but to try and find the damn place. When he cautiously entered through the flaps, it was not a comforting sight. There had to be around two thousand people in that tent, resting on the lined up blankets, sitting and talking, or standing around looking awkward. It could have been worse. Given that three quarters of the village had been levelled in one blast, the death toll could have been almost total.

He saw a flash of pink and red between the dusty bodies of the 'recently deceased' and his heart nearly stopped. Not her. God, not her. Please don't let her have been one of the ones who...

But the crowd parted a little more and Kakashi realised she was crouched next to a camp-bed, holding tight onto the person sitting on it: Shizune. He relaxed a little. Sakura was a medic; of course she was here. And her bedside manner was very enthusiastic, he thought wryly, noticing that although she and Shizune had never appeared to him to be very close, they hugged each other and cried like long lost sisters. It had to be very emotional, learning a friend had been lost to death and only by the flimsiest whim of a psycho had she been returned.

Kakashi wandered between the rows of surprisingly healthy looking dead people in search of a spare bed to lie on and wait his turn. It would be nice if he had Icha Icha to pass the time, but he supposed his collection would have been turned to dust along with everything else in the village. Kakashi felt more than a touch of survival guilt.

"Sensei?"

He turned, hands in pockets to regard the young girl walking up to him almost shyly. She was covered head to toe in a fine layer of building dust, and although the blood spattering her arms and shirt wasn't her own, there were some pretty magnificent bruises appearing on her legs.

"Keeping busy?" he asked her pleasantly.

"Yes, well, a little unnecessarily. Everyone who died needs to be checked over for any hidden problems, but everyone here seems to be in better condition than the ones who survived. They're not even tired." She was twisting her fingers together in an uncharacteristic display of nervousness. He wasn't surprised. He'd been left pretty shaken himself after Konoha had almost been destroyed by the Kyuubi, and this was far worse.

"We can't underestimate Naruto's charisma if he can talk the dead back to full life, I suppose," he sighed.

She gave a shaky smile, which faded suddenly. "Sorry, were you looking for someone?"

"Ah, no." He looked embarrassed as his gaze swept the muggy tent. "I was just looking for a bed actually."

"A bed..."

"They said I should come down and get checked out, but like you said, it seems a little unnecessary. I don't even feel tired."

She stared at him, going pale beneath her dust. "You didn't... did you?"

"For a little while," he sighed. "It's pretty humiliating. I just got word that Konohamaru took out one of the largest invaders all by himself, and I got my ass kicked by the skinniest one. Ah – look."

Someone too tired of waiting to be told he was fine had vacated the camp-bed beside them and Kakashi sat down swiftly on the papery blanket. "This is nice. Though it could do with some air conditioning here. All these dead bodies appear to be generating a lot of body heat..."

Sakura continued to gape at him in something close to horror. "Sensei, are you alright?"

He spread his arms. "Don't worry about me, Sakura. I'm plainly alive."

"But... how did you...?" She swallowed. "No one told me. I didn't even _think_ you might've gotten hurt..."

"You clearly need to lower your expectations of my capability." He shrugged. "But don't worry about it. Things are what they are. If I died, it doesn't matter, because I'm still here, aren't I? You can at least look happy at the thought."

Her face grew hot with anger as if he'd flipped a switch. "How can you be so flippant? I thought I'd lost everyone today. There was this horrible, hot light and when I got up all the people I'd healed – all the ones I'd saved – they were all dead! Then I was trying to save Hinata, and I thought I was going to lose Naruto and Tsunade too! I didn't stop and think about you... and you were already dead. I should have been there!"

He held out his hand to her, and after staring at it in confusion for a moment she reached back. His fingers were warmer and cleaner, and curled around her smaller, trembling ones tightly. "I didn't think about you either," he lied.

She extricated her fingers from his grip as if it hurt to touch him. "I should check you over..." she said quietly.

"I don't want to queue jump. There's a thousand people ahead of me in the line."

"Yes, of course."

Distractedly she turned and began to wander away, looking for her last patient. Kakashi stared at the palm of the hand that had held hers and his fist clenched, squeezing thin air. That was all he was getting. She wouldn't embrace him like Shizune, because that kind of thing wasn't appropriate between men and women unless they were involved, related, or extremely close friends, none of which they were. He was only her teacher, and her on-n-off again team captain sometimes. She would never look at him as anything more than that.

He had to put it out of his mind. His long talk with his father had revealed some startling inadequacies in his life that he would have to resolve before he died again and was subjected to another lecture about a non-existent love life. First he'd have to see about getting himself a girlfriend, and then-

The camp-bed wobbled as Sakura suddenly sat down next to him and threw her arms tightly around his neck. His arms caught around her dazedly without him realising, and she released a big juddering sigh over his shoulder the way people did when they were done crying. "Don't ever..." she whispered threateningly.

By the time his poor, shocked brain could catch up with what was going on, Sakura was already back on her feet, hurrying away with her ears turning quite red.

Kakashi lay back on the blanket with a small smile and linked his fingers over his stomach, and for the first time since he'd woken up he was glad to be alive.


	11. Terminal

22nd November 2009

Rating: T

* * *

11. **Terminal**

Sakura hummed as she trotted up the winding staircase of the Hokage tower, a bunch of medical case files under her arm. She'd spent the whole morning working on these patients and now they were ready to be discharged once Tsunade gave her the go-ahead. All in all, she was proud of her work, and she glowed with anticipation for the praise Tsunade might impart on her. If she was in a good mood. And if Mars was aligned with Saturn and two moons of Jupiter.

The door was shut to the Hokage's office, but the blinds were open. Sakura glanced within to make sure the Hokage wasn't meeting with anyone important (only Kakashi-sensei, no big deal), before inviting herself in with a bright knock.

"Shishou, I have the-"

"Can it wait, Sakura?" Tsunade interrupted. "The door was shut for a reason."

Chastised, Sakura knew immediately something wasn't right. The hokage was looking tense and unusually serious, while Kakashi had yet to apparently even notice the interruption. He was sitting in a chair before the desk, staring at some unseen point in the middle distance through the open window.

"Sorry," Sakura said, with a blush of embarrassment. "Is… um… is everything alright?"

Tsunade glanced at Kakashi, as if this was his question to answer. The man finally seemed to stir and turned his head slightly to give her a vague smile. "Everything's alright. No need to worry, Sakura."

This left Sakura utterly convinced that something_ was_ wrong. Something terrible.

"Ok," she said quietly, and quickly backed out of the office, shutting the door behind her. She paused, but the windows and the door were soundproof, giving her no indication of what was being said. She could lip read, but Tsunade might notice if she was plastered against the glass pane, staring at them. So Sakura dumped the case files in the nearest chair of the waiting room and swiftly made her way down the corridor to the fire escape at the very end.

It was rude to eavesdrop, and possibly quite illegal to eavesdrop on the Hokage, but Sakura didn't like the mood in that office, and these were two people very important to her. She _had _to know what was going on.

She skirted the boarded walkway that encircled the upper level of the Hokage tower, past the windows and meeting rooms and offices and archives until at last she came to the same open window Kakashi had been staring out of. Making sure not to be seen, she hunkered with her back to the wall, getting as close as she dared in order to hear what was being said.

"…little unusual to come to me directly, but I understand your desire for secrecy in this case," she could hear Tsunade saying. "But I'm afraid that's not much I can do considering the circumstances."

"That's alright," Kakashi said heavily. "I just wanted confirmation more than anything."

"When did you begin noticing the symptoms?"

"The loss of appetite began about three weeks ago… then the nausea and vomiting. Blood in the mouth… you know. All the works." He sighed. "Is there nothing you can do?"

"I can prescribe some painkillers, but there's no treatment. The stoliosis infection's gone deep. If you'd come to me earlier… maybe there would have been some hope of treatment, but right now, I'm sorry to say with the illness as advanced as it is… this is terminal."

A cold, queer feeling gripped Sakura's heart. _Terminal?_

There was a long, painful silence. "How long do I have?" Kakashi asked.

Tsunade's chair squeaked. "A month, maybe two, but no more than that," she said quietly. "Death tends to be protracted and painful in these cases."

"Well, that's something to look forward to," Kakashi murmured dryly. "A month doesn't seem much all of a sudden…"

"You won't be able to hide it for long."

"I can try. I trust you to keep this to yourself."

"I'm bound by doctor patient confidentiality, you know that," Tsunade replied sharply. "But perhaps you should-"

"I think… for now I just want to go home."

"I see. Take this prescription to the pharmacy. It'll ease the pain."

"Thank you, Tsunade-sama."

"If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to ask."

"I'm grateful."

The office door opened and shut again, and Sakura crawled away from the window, cold and stiff with a dozen different emotions she couldn't name or control.

Kakashi-sensei was dying? An infection? Stoliosis? _What the hell was stoliosis_? Why hadn't she noticed? Yes, he'd seemed tired and depressed lately, but she'd thought nothing of it. Why hadn't he _said_ anything?!

She was suddenly moved by the enormous and irrepressible urge to _do_ something. But what? It took people whole lifetimes to invent life-saving medical jutsu for new procedures. She couldn't invent one to cure a fatal illness in less than two months! But he couldn't die! He was Kakashi-sensei! Who would lead the team? How would life ever be the same without the man who had always looked out for her?

Should she go to Naruto? He'd want to know. He _deserved_ to know. But what about Kakashi's wishes that this remain private? It was bad enough that Sakura had overheard, yet… oh god, she wished she'd never eavesdropped!

_I need to see him, _she thought. _He needs to know he doesn't have to handle it alone and that he has friends who love him. I can't sit back and do nothing!_

Sakura decided to head to Kakashi's place immediately. But it wasn't a swift journey, as she kept stopping to try and figure out what to say when she got there. As afraid of the confrontation as she was however, it only made her more determined to see him.

Her fist shook as it knocked on his door.

"Coming," she heard his flat voice call from somewhere inside, making nervous butterflies burst into life inside her stomach. All the things she'd thought of to say on her way here were suddenly gone from her head. Oh no! She could hear him turning the catch in the door – what the hell was she going to say?

The door drew open to reveal her tall sensei standing within, one hand on the handle, the other holding a lettuce leaf. He looked slightly surprised to see her, but otherwise quite apathetic.

Sakura opened her mouth.

"I love you," she said.

Nothing at all changed in Kakashi's expression, other than the lettuce leaf that dropped from his hand.

Sakura wanted to shoot herself.

"Well – I mean, I love everyone!" she amended hastily. "I love Naruto and Tsunade-shishou and my mom, and you! Especially you! Well, maybe not especially, as in _special, _but you know what I mean, don't you? I think it's important that you know! I'd hate think we've known each other all these years but I never had a chance to say the really important things to you! I don't want you to go and never have known that I love you. _Platonically_! You know, the normal way students and teachers love each other. Ok, that sounded more normal in my head, but tell me you understand? You don't have to be alone, Kakashi-sensei. At times like this it's more important than ever to affirm the bonds we have with other people. So… that's why I needed to tell you that I love you."

He stared at her a moment longer, as if waiting to see if there was any more where that had come from. "Ok," he said at last, "Would you like to come in?"

"Please," she said in a small voice.

"I'll make you a cup of tea," he said.

"I should be making _you_ a cup of tea."

"No, I can manage that at least."

His apartment was only a one room apartment, with a bed in one corner, a desk in another, and a tiny kitchen in the other. Sakura watched his back as he dropped a teabag into a cup and turned on the kettle, and then she could no longer bear it; she threw her arms around his middle and pressed her face against his back as sobs began to break from her throat.

To his credit, Kakashi carried on fixing the tea.

"It's not fair," she croaked. "How can life be so cruel?! I don't want you to die! I-"

"Sugar?" He picked up a small packet.

"Yes, please. But I-"

"Milk?" he held up a half empty bottle.

"No, thank you," and when he picked up a wad of green leaves she said, "I don't want lettuce either." What was with all the damn lettuce anyway? Had Tsunade put him on a diet?

"That's not for you," he said lightly, disentangling her arms from about his waist quite calmly. "That's for Shelly."

"Shelly?"

He handed her the tea and beckoned her to follow. Sakura wiped futilely at her tears as he led her to the messy coffee table in the middle of the room, upon which sat a box full of newspaper, straw, and greens. It was tipped on its side, beside this box sat something that Sakura had mistaken for an ugly paper weight, but now that Kakashi invited her to look more closely, she realised it was an ugly animal.

Kakashi sat down next to the table and began waggling a little green lettuce leaf in front of the motionless brown lump. "This is Shelly," he said. "Gai's pet tortoise he's lent to me to look after while he's away on that Sand mission. Only it's not very well…"

Sakura stared as a scaly grey head peeped out at Kakashi, before retracting just as quickly.

"Tsunade was good enough to run some tests on it and give me some medicine, but at this point the most merciful thing might be to just take a mallet to it."

"The tortoise…" Sakura whispered faintly. "The tortoise… has stoliosis."

"Sad, huh? Although it is over ninety years old."

"And you… you're fine."

"At least until Gai comes home and murders me." He gave up waggling the lettuce at the paperweight and looked up at her with a smile. "So. You love me?"

Sakura's blood boiled and the subsequent slap had people stopping three streets away to look around in bemusement. While Kakashi fell back against the bed, Sakura set down her tea next to the tortoise and rose to her feet, summoning all her remaining dignity (which wasn't much).

"Next time you're not dying!" she yelled as she stormed out, "have the decency to tell me so!"

She left behind a stunned Kakashi and a curiously thirsty tortoise who, as it turned out, discovered the cure for stoliosis was in fact tea.


	12. Camera

25th May 2010

Rating T

* * *

12. **Camera**

It had spent them the better part of the evening to get this far. Kakashi had proven to be a surprisingly awkward social butterfly, so it had been mostly up to Sakura to charm their way into the ambassador's house warming party and mingle well enough to ensure they looked vaguely like they were supposed to be there and weren't up to anything suspicious. It had been especially nerve-racking when they had unwittingly fallen into the ambassador's path and had to explain who they were and why they'd been invited. Fortunately, being an ambassador, it was the man's job to pretend to know people he didn't know, and after bantering about their imaginary history, Kakashi and Sakura were finally able to slip away with none being the wiser. One minor distraction later and they were past the guards and into the quieter labyrinth of the house not open to guests.

"His office is on the second floor. Come on," Kakashi beckoned. Together they padded silently along the marble floored halls and up a carpeted set of stairs. The ambassador's office door was easy to find – it was the largest, most ornate one in the corridor. It was also locked. But since Kakashi had a jutsu for every occasion, they were inside in half a second, and faced with a room of many shelves and locked cabinets.

"I'll start from the left, you start from the right," she whispered, even though there was no one on this floor to hear them. Like the true professionals they were, they got to work.

"Hey, Sakura, look at this."

She glanced over her shoulder at her partner in crime and gave a great roll of her eyes. Kakashi had found the ambassador's cupboard of tupées and was now sporting a rather fetching black wig. "Put it back," she hissed. "We're here to find the documents, not play dress up."

"You're such a spoil sport," he chided, but he obediently put the hairpiece back and resumed his search, humming in amusement whenever he unearthed anything new and strange. He wasn't taking this assignment seriously at all, so it was no wonder that Sakura found the trade documents first.

"Got them," she said, as she spread them out on the oak desk and pulled out her tiny, noiseless camera to begin taking as many pictures as she could. They couldn't leave any trace that they'd been here, so it was impossible to take the documents with them. A photocopier would have been nice, but pictures would have to do for now. While she clicked away furiously, Kakashi poked at a small statue of a headless woman with enormous breasts.

"The Other Half have way too much time, money, and repressed sexual urges on their hands," he sighed.

"That's an icon of an ancient fertility goddess," she corrected. "Don't poke her."

"Seems like the only thing you should do to an ancient fertility goddess," he retorted, straightening up to stretch his arms so high his shoulders clicked.

"There, that should do it," Sakura said, shuffling the papers back into their original order and moving to replace them back onto the shelves behind the door. Kakashi continued to fiddle with a magnetic pen holder on the desk, curious how a pen could stand so perfectly straight while balancing only on its nib.

Sakura slipped the documents back into the exact place she'd found them. Then disasters struck. In the crack between the door and is frame, a shadow moved, breaking the light streaming from the corridor. She froze, for it was already too late.

"What the hell are you doing in my office?"

The ambassador had arrived.

Kakashi spun guiltily to face the door, but as far as the ambassador was concerned, he was alone. He couldn't see Sakura crouched in the shadows, and that was their only advantage left. _Keep him busy,_ she prayed to Kakashi, though sadly he was not a mind-reader. As long as Kakashi could hold the man's attention, she might just be able to sneak around behind him and knock him unconscious without a fuss. Their mission may have been severely compromised, but it was all they could do now they're been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.

"Ambassador," Kakashi said smoothly, as if he'd expected the other man all along. He leant his hip against the desk and gave him a hooded look. "I was wondering when you would come along... I've been waiting for you."

"Waiting for me?" the ambassador repeated incredulously. He came a few steps into the room. A few steps more and Sakura would be able to slip behind him.

"Of course... your wife is quite clingy, I didn't know how else to get you alone." Kakashi reached up to ease the mask down his face. "I hope I wasn't wrong... I felt quite the connection between us when we met downstairs."

It seemed Kakashi was going for the old seduction trick, usually only viable for kunoichi. It might work though. In a moment the ambassador would probably get flustered and deny what he thought were the earnest advances of a handsome young man and be so embarrassed he'd send Kakashi away without a fuss. The mission could be salvaged after all. _Nice one, Kakashi-sensei,_ she thought, proud of her sensei's ability to always think on the fly.

"You're quite presumptuous, aren't you?" the ambassador, remarked, moving forward again. Sakura eased out from behind the door, ready to back through it and wait outside for Kakashi when he was inevitably sent packing. "Who let you in here? Was it Hideki?"

"Yes," said Kakashi guilelessly.

"The man has a good taste." Then the ambassador reached up to stroke a finger down Kakashi's cheek.

Sakura's mouth dropped open. For a split second, so did Kakashi's, though he quickly recovered, turning his shocked gaffe into something resembling a pleasured sigh.

"Oh, ambassador," he moaned, and then for some reason they were kissing, and Kakashi was flapping his hand frantically behind the ambassador's back at Sakura, hinting she should get the hell out of there while she had the chance.

Sakura ignored him, instead lifting her camera to her eye...

Then the men turned, and Kakashi was the one pinning the ambassador to the desk. If the man opened his eyes he would _definitely _see Sakura – so with just one last click she silently scampered out of the room and hid in the nearest alcove.

She worried her lip as she waited and listened to the moans and the sounds of things like magnetic pens falling off desks. So her sensei's chastity was being deeply compromised, _but at least she had the pictures to prove it._

After what seemed like far too long, she heard Kakashi making excuses – something about not wanting his heart broken – and then he was emerging from the office, blowing kisses to the man within. As he passed Sakura's alcove, he grabbed her hand and hurried her on towards the stairs, still with that strained smile on his face.

"How far did you get?" she whispered. "Second base, right?"

"Got enough photos?" he whispered back curtly.

"I'm sorry, my finger slipped on the button," she said innocently. "About eighteen times, would you believe?"

Perhaps she shouldn't be teasing him about this, for suddenly she found herself pushed against the wall in the secluded landing halfway down the stairs, Kakashi looming over her, no longer all smiles and sultry pouts. "Sorry," he said, fingers twisted quite firmly in her lapels. "I need to get the taste of diplomacy and closet homosexuality out of my mouth."

"What- mmf!"

Kakashi's mouth closed over hers with punishing force. It occurred to her that he could just as easily have wiped his mouth on his sleeve if it bothered him so much, but she didn't care. Kakashi's skilled lips moved over hers and his breath fanned across her cheek, and it was the most glorious thing she'd felt in all her eighteen years of life. She gasped and sighed, just as easily seduced as the ambassador had been, and turned her head to allow him to taste the skin of her throat and nip her delicious ear lobe.

Another groan, escaped her throat, echoed by his deeper, fainter one. Two people could easily get carried away like this, and if this was how Kakashi reacted to every bad taste in his mouth, Sakura planned to be there slipping soap shavings into his sandwiches for a long time to come.

His body pressed against hers tightly and she nearly melted with a quivery sigh. Only then did he pull back a little, mindful of the fact that he was really the only thing keeping her up. "Better?" she whispered against his lips, gazing up at him with a completely new respect.

"Could be better," he murmured, staring at her mouth hungrily.

"We could find a hotel for the night... figure out other ways to repair your masculinity."

"Mm," he hummed, liking that suggestion enough to lean in and bump noses with her. "Ah – wait – my finger slipped."

Sakura blinked in confusion, then – noting his self-satisfied grin – she followed his gaze to something he was holding up near their heads.

The camera.

"You didn't-!" she gasped, scandalised.

"Must have slipped a dozen times there," he said, doing a bad job of sounding contrite. "I'm so sorry."

"Kakashi – give me that camera." She reached for it, but he whipped it out of her reach and stuffed it into one of his pockets. "You can have it back once we get to the hotel... _if_ you figure out a way to divest it from my person."

Sakura raised an eyebrows. She would be divesting a lot off his person if she had her own way, and from Kakashi's responding leer, he didn't intend to go down without a fight.

* * *

Tsunade's face was unreadable as she examined the photos lined up on her desk. The pictures of the documents were invaluable, exactly what the client had demanded and the village would be paid handsomely for these.

Unfortunately... the rest of them...

Tsunade had no idea what purpose photos of Kakashi kissing a man in an obvious tupée were. Nor the many photos of Kakashi and Sakura kissing in what looked like a stairwell. The photo of a naked Kakashi sprawled on a bed, sleeping, was not one that Tsunade had needed or wanted to see. The next one clearly taken up his nostrils was only slightly less offensive. Then there were the pictures of Sakura bent over in tight white panties, taken from a very admiring angle.

The hokage looked up at the two shinobi before her, who were both studiously looking everywhere except at her. They had only enough decency to look a little ashamed.

"I have never seen such flagrant abuse of village property in my life," she admonished. "What do you two have to say for yourselves?"

Kakashi coughed. "Can I keep this one," he asked politely, pointing to the picture of Sakura in nothing but her panties.

"If he gets to keep one, can I keep this one?" Sakura tapped the picture Kakashi stripped of everything (including his dignity).

"No way," he said.

"Yeah way. It's a really flattering angle, don't you think... makes it look way bigger than it actually is."

"Ah, that's true..."

Tsunade reclined in her chair, covering her eyes with a fatigued sigh. "This is why we can't have nice things."


	13. Birthday

9th June 2010

Rating: M

* * *

**

* * *

**

13.** Birthday**

Kakashi woke to horridly stark light, although it was the shifting body next to him that had roused him from one of the deepest sleeps he'd ever known. Disorientation hit hard and fast. His head throbbed, his sinuses were blazing, and the room stunk of alcohol enough to make his stomach roll in a threatening manner.

How the hell had he ended up in this situation of what felt like a hangover from hell with a nice topping of flu? His mind sluggishly crawled over the memories of yesterday… of that god awful birthday party he'd attempted to wriggle out of, and the bar he'd subsequently planted himself in. At least the one thing he remembered (although he rather wished he didn't) was that yesterday had been his thirty-fourth. Pretty much everything else was a jumbled mess, like a strange dream that was getting harder and harder to recall by the second.

So where did Sakura come into it? He was sure that Sakura had been there at the bar too, nagging him about being an antisocial bastard or saying something about weight-lifting badgers.

Holy mother, how much had he _drunk_ last night?

While Kakashi cradled his aching head, the body beside him shifted with a sleepy sigh – soft and feminine – as his bedmate began to rouse. Suddenly Kakashi was too terrified to look. There had to be a mistake. Surely he wouldn't have…? Maybe Sakura had gone home and he'd hooked up with another woman later in the evening?

But one glimpse of ruffled pink hair as the girl sat up told him that he had screwed up royally this time. She stretched and yawned, her shoulder cracking impressively, and then her heel bumped his leg and she paused. Turning slowly, she fixed bleary eyes on him. "Um… morning…" she croaked. "What are you doing in my bed?"

"This is my bed," he pointed out. "This is _my_ apartment."

She looked around the room, confused, until suddenly she appeared to remember where she was and what she was doing there. "Oh, right," she whispered. "Jeez, this is embarrassing."

She sat up, with the duvet clasped to her chest and he realized she was just as naked at he was, and it hit Kakashi like a punch in the gut. "Sakura… did we…?"

"Um," she said again, scratching her hand. "You don't remember?"

"What the hell happened?" he whispered.

"Are you sure you want to know?" she asked, "You said yourself last night you wanted to forget."

"Just tell me."

"Alright, you asked for it…"

* * *

**What the Hell Happened**

When Sakura found Kakashi at the bar, he was already enormously drunk. So drunk that when she marched up behind him and gave his shoulder an angry push, he nearly slid right off his stool.

"Oh. Hey, Sakura," he said with a distinctly blurred slur. His eyes were dilated, his collar was flying, and the paper crown that had replaced his hitai-ate had slid to what would have been considered a rakish angle had it not been a paper crown. He wore a vague kind of guilty look, probably because he knew he'd been caught, and also a slightly annoyed look… again, for the same reason.

"I can't believe you left!" she cried, punching his shoulder again for good measure. "You didn't even stay to blow out your candles."

"Thank god," he slurred dimly. "The last thing I want to see right now is thirty-fo… is… that many candles. And I can't go back now. I have double vision… so the next last thing I want to see is sixty eight candles. Two Sakuras is bad enough."

Sakura planted her hands on her hips. "I thought you liked birthdays."

"Other people's." He brought his glass of generic brand alcohol to his lips, though it took a few misses in the process. "My birthdays… not good."

Sakura was stumped, not knowing what to do. "So you're just going to spend your birthday alone in a bar?" she asked incredulously. "Why don't you be sociable and acknowledge that there are people who care about you and were willing to throw you a party? The _least_ you could do is bother to show up."

"I can appreciate them all very much from this stool," he replied. "And if I went back, people would only discover what a drunk asshole I am on my birthdays and so never speak to me again. It is better for me – and by extension: the world – if I were to come to terms with my age alone."

"Oh, shut up. You're not that old."

"Says the child of eighteen."

"Twenty," Sakura corrected. "I'm twenty."

"How nice for you. Now if you don't mind, you may run along back to the party and tell everyone to stop worrying and that I am just momentarily deposed with a matter of business."

"I'll tell them you're in a bar getting stinking drunk," Sakura said unsympathetically.

"No, tell them I'm saving puppies or something awesome like that," he said. "Be kind. It's my birthday."

Sakura gave him a slightly pitying look. "No one should be alone on their birthday."

"I'm not alone. There's plenty of people here to make sure I don't top myself."

"That's not what I meant." Sakura sighed and slipped onto the stool beside his. "Well, if you're adamant about being here and not there, I guess I might as well keep you company."

Kakashi looked at her with severe dislike. "No. Go away. The whole point of being here is to get away from cheerful bastards like you."

"I'm not trying to cheer you up, I just want to keep you company." She signaled to one of the bar maids. "Sweet martini, please. Thanks. Look, I'm not going to sing you songs or make you wear silly hats-"

"Don't touch my hat."

"Alright, alright. Keep the damn hat. I'm just going to sit here and drink my drink and then I'll walk you home."

"I don't need you to-"

"Don't even kid me that you can see more than three feet."

Kakashi gave a non-committal grunt and for the next few minutes they more or less sat in complete silence, punctuated only by a new drink order or Kakashi occasionally swearing softly to himself. Sakura was on her second martini with her face propped dismally in her palms when he finally consented to speak. "Every year done is a year closer to your death," he said. "Did you know that?"

"And every day done is a day closer to your death," she rebuked. "There's no point getting depressed about it."

"You will too when you're as old as I am and you realize that most of the friends you ever had are already dead."

"Oh, for…" Sakura hastily bit off her words. It was going to be one of _those_ birthdays. "Why don't you just cheer up and be thankful for the ones still alive?"

"I'd cheer up if you took your shirt off," he said stolidly.

And he was going to be one of _those_ drunks too, huh? Sakura skewed him a suspicious glance. "Would it really cheer you up?"

"Would you take your shirt off?" he didn't quite believe her either.

"If it would make you cheer up."

"Yes, it would, actually."

"Shame, I don't believe you." She laughed at his disappointed sigh and began stirring her drink. "You're kinda pervy when you're drunk, you know"

He thought, and he thought hard. "I'm always pervy," he said slowly. "I just hide it better."

"Like you hide your face?" she asked, letting her eyes wander over his profile with pleasure. She didn't often see his face, so it was always something to appreciate. While he wasn't conventionally handsome, and in fact at first glance some might think he was plain, his personality was ingrained in his every feature. When you realised that, typical beauty seemed empty and boring by comparison.

"Sure. I hide all sorts of things. Just wait till I take off my girdle."

Sakura choked on her drink and couldn't seem to decide between laughing and coughing. She slapped Kakashi's arm. "Don't do that," she scolded between giggles and wheezes.

"I'm sorry," he said solemnly. "I'll never make another joke ever again."

But this only made her giggle harder.

Sakura had no idea what had become of the party they'd both ditched. No doubt they had just continued on without the birthday boy or else gone home, because no one had come to find them yet. Kakashi was so completely unconcerned that Sakura was sure, after his fifth bottle, he'd forgotten there had even been a party. She ribbed him gently over his decreasing ability to hold himself upright until he eventually misplaced an elbow and was sent head-first into the bar. Judging from how Sakura nearly fell over backwards for laughing too hard, she began to realize that she was possibly getting just as drunk.

"I can do magic, you know," Kakashi slurred.

"No you can't," Sakura slurred back.

"Yes I can."

"Pro… prove it then."

"I bet you I could turn this pint glass upside down and not spill a drop," he said.

"What should we bet?"

"You have to pay my tabs if I lose."

That sounded like a perfectly reasonable bet to Sakura's woozy brain. "Alright. You're on."

He took his half-drunken glass and slapped a cork coaster over the top. Rather predictably, when he turned it upside down, beer went cascading over the bar and both their laps. Sakura cackled with abandonment while Kakashi tried to figure out where it had all gone wrong.

"Magic!" Sakura shrieked. "Pure magic!"

"Now you have to pay for all our drinks," Kakashi said a little smugly.

"Haha – wait, what?" Sakura gasped. "You tricked me, you bastard – pay for your own damn drinks!"

But by then the bartender had had enough of both of them. He'd been scowling at them for most of the evening, especially at Sakura who had a very loud drunken laugh, and mopping up after them was his limit. "You're both wasted and you're disturbing the other customers. I'm going to have to ask you both to leave," he said forcefully.

Sakura looked in awe at Kakashi. "Sensei, we're being kicked out."

"That we are, Sakura."

"Should we riot?"

"No, no. There's another bar down the road."

Sakura wound up paying the tab completely anyway, as it turned out that Kakashi had forgotten to bring any kind of currency, no matter how deeply Sakura wriggled her hand in his pockets. They helped each other stagger out onto the street, but to their dismay, the next bar they stumbled along to was closed.

"Wow, it must be really late," Sakura said, trying to read her watch until she realized it was a bracelet.

"Could you stop spinning us around so much?" Kakashi grumbled.

"I'm not spinning us around. You're drunk, you fool."

"Oh," he said. "maybe we should go home then? Before we collapse?"

It was anyone's guess which apartment they aimed for first. Most of the way they sang a bawdy version of Happy Birthday through the deserted streets until people began leaning out of their windows to tell them off, which had them both shushing each other amid shameless giggles.

"You're such a noisy drunk!" Sakura said loudly.

They fell over a couple of times, although more often than not it was Kakashi, since he was by far the most unsteady of the two. Sakura had to haul him up the stairs of his own complex by his arm, which was difficult, because her own legs had a tendency to give up every few steps. By the time she got him to the top, he was flat on the floor and she had to drag his sorry carcass along the outside walkway while trying to figure out which door was Kakashi's apartment.

"This one?"

"Not that one."

"This one?"

"I don't think so."

"This one?"

"Mmm… could be?"

That was good enough for Sakura. She rummaged around Kakashi's pockets again, much to his amusement, but all she wound up doing was tickling him. "Where's your key?" she giggled.

"I hid it," he declared. "I hid it so well, even I wouldn't be able to find it."

"Genius Hatake Kakashi," Sakura snickered.

"Climb in through the window and unlock the door."

"You do it. It's your flat."

"The window's not big enough to fit my voluptuous curves. But you're like a stick with a head on top, so I'm sure you could do it."

"You're so suave when you're wasted," she purred, but began pushing open his window.

Ninja grace was somewhat diminished by alcohol, Sakura discovered, as she tumbled into an unceremonious heap on the floor and then commenced to trip over every chair and table leg in the dark kitchen as she blundered her way around in search for the door. When she found it and unlocked it, she threw it open with a triumphant cry. "Ta-daa!"

But Kakashi was gone. Sakura took a step outside to look around for him, only to find his back end sticking out of the window she'd just crawled through. He was clearly stuck.

"What did you go and do that for?" she asked his backside.

"You made it look so easy," he sighed.

"Do I push or pull?"

"No, no, just leave me here. I'm sure someone will be along in the morning to help me."

"Don't be silly!" she cried with a giggle and grabbed his belt to begin hauling him backwards. It turned out he wasn't that stuck, as he came loose fairly easily and staggered slightly until Sakura hauled his arm over her shoulder.

"Man, you're strong," he said admiringly. "Strong… like a badger."

She led him through the door, which was difficult since it wasn't exactly wide enough for two people. "Are badgers strong?" she asked.

"They could be if they worked out more," he admitted. "Lazy bastards."

"Right. Where's your bedroom?"

"Somewhere."

Sakura took the most likely door, and then the second most likely door when the first proved to be a closet, and then gently dragged Kakashi over towards his single-sized bed. He groaned as she let him flop down onto the rumpled covers and whispered into his pillow that he'd never be vertical again.

Sakura rolled him onto his back and pushed his fair hair away from his face to see him better. "Did you have a good birthday?" she asked.

"Yeah, it was alright, I guess," he said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. In fact he looked downright unhappy. Sakura tried to manipulate his cheeks into forcing a smile, but that didn't seem to be working either.

"Would a birthday kiss cheer you up?"

"No."

She decided to kiss him anyway, though she very quickly pulled back. "Ew! You taste like beer."

"No shame in that," he said, stretching. "A very traditional drink brewed by ancients… and drunk probably to help them forget they were ancient too. Hey, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking your shoes off," she explained with a cheeky smile as she worked to get his boots loose. She knew at least that he wouldn't be pleased to wake up tomorrow to muddy sheets, so she could at least do him this favor.

"If I didn't know any better, I would have said you were trying to strip me in order to have your way with me," he said suspiciously. "It would be just like you to take advantage of a drunken old man."

"Maybe I should?" Sakura teased and laughingly began to unbuckle his belt. Even Kakashi giggled as he pathetically tried to evade her surprisingly nimble fingers. He rolled over, but Sakura just climbed onto the bed to straddle his ankles and keep tugging until they were both shaking with silent laughter, hardly able to breathe, and somehow Kakashi's pants were tangled around his knees.

"How'd you like that then?" Sakura crowed triumphantly, giving Kakashi's naked backside a sound slap.

"This is a form of rape!" he choked between laughs.

Sakura wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. "You wish," she gasped. "It's your own fault for not wearing underwear – NO – don't you dare roll over!"

But he spared her poor eyes by dragging the edge of the sheet over his lap as he twisted. "It's your own fault for stripping me," he reminded. "Don't want to see a naked man, don't wrestle his pants off."

"You _were_ asking for it," she teased. "But you can't go to bed like this! Here, let's get your jacket off."

He didn't bother to resist much this time round and an amused, slightly dreamy smile played on his lips as Sakura unzipped his green jacket, threw it haphazardly on the floor and then began to work both his shirt and vest up over his head. But while he may not have been resisting, he wasn't helping much either, and Sakura nearly broke down in another fit of giggles when her attempts to lever his clothes over his head failed and left his head and arms tangled up in them.

"Actually this could be an improvement," Sakura said, locating his nose through two layers of clothing to give it a tweak. "I prefer you like this."

"I shall have to dress like this more often," his muffled voice replied, as he vainly tried to figure out what exactly had happened and why he couldn't move his arms.

Sakura tickled her fingers over his ribs for her own amusement, though she found herself quickly captivated by the human form beneath her. His muscles were defined and lean, and he was such an achingly perfect specimen of masculinity that for a moment she was breathless. Why had she only noticed just now? Perhaps because he was so much older… his physique had a harder edge compared to the men her own age, but he was still attractive. Perhaps even more so, if that wasn't the beer-goggles talking.

Never mind that he was lost inside his own shirt, Sakura had never seen such splendid abdominal muscles, or felt such inexplicable attraction to line of course hair leading down his naval to his barely covered groin. In the moonlight he looked magnificent. Every muscle and every angle was outlined for her eyes alone, and Sakura couldn't help but run her hands across the expanse of his torso with a little more appreciation.

Kakashi paused in his epic battle for freedom. "Hey, Sakura…" he slurred in a confused tone, "what are you doing?"

She shrugged even though he couldn't see. "I don't know," she said honestly. "I'm just doing what I want to."

Bending down, she dragged her tongue boldly over one of his nipples. Sakura didn't know quite why she did it, it was just that she was drunk and so was he and she felt somewhat entitled. Kakashi gave a slightly drunken laugh that was half a hiccup. "You're _so_ drunk," he sniggered.

"You're drunkest," she shot back, and helped pry the shirt from over his head once and for all. He look a little disorientated for a moment. Sakura had never seen anyone quite so devastatingly handsome.

His face was very close, and this seemed to be because Sakura was now pretty much lying along him. He was completely naked save for the tangled pants around his ankles, but none of this seemed to alarm Sakura. In fact it was rather fun. But what would be even _more_ fun would be to kiss him again.

And so she did, pressing her lips against his in a coaxing ploy. He still tasted of beer, but she could get used to that, if he would just _respond_. She ran her tongue over his lip, nipped at his chin and sighed into his ear, but the only indication that he was even alive was the hand that lightly touched her back. It wasn't an encouraging hand either – it was the kind that seemed about to tap her on the shoulder to tell her to get off.

She sat up, dismayed at his lack of participation, and was even more put out to find that the smile she'd so carefully nurtured into existence all evening had vanished. "Why do you have to look so serious?" she asked, pressing her hands against his cheeks like she might a forlorn puppy. "I don't know how to cheer you up, Kakashi."

"You could take your top off?" he suggested nonchalantly.

Sakura bit her lip and gave him a shrewd look. "Alright… but you can't tell anyone, or I'll be cross."

At his nod, she took the hem of her green fashion top in her hands – the one she'd especially picked out for his birthday party – and dragged it over her head, revealing the slightly padded cream and red bra beneath. She hadn't agreed to take off this bra, but it seemed only fair seeing as how he was naked, and soon she had slipped it off too and tossed it the same way as her green top and all of Kakashi's clothes.

She knew that normally she was quite self-conscious about her breasts. They weren't big – certainly nowhere near as big as Ino's – and taking off the padded bra might have served as a bitter disappointment for Kakashi. But Sakura felt confident. She felt sexy. Kakashi stared, and stared, and stared, and then he sighed. "This is the best birthday. Ever."

Sakura squeaked and giggled as Kakashi upturned her and somehow she ended up on the narrow bed beside him, only pretending to fend off the lecherous hands which wandered over her with great liberty. His mouth found hers to silence her playful protests, and though it was as clumsy and inept as only a drunken kiss could be, it made Sakura's toes curl and her head spin. Though the latter could have been due to the alcohol. She felt like she was floating along in a mindless haze where everything felt indistinct and distant, even Kakashi's calloused fingers stroking her back and hips felt like they were touching someone else.

Then suddenly he laughed and tried to lean back. "No, I'm drunk. I shouldn't…"

Sakura pulled him back quickly. "Yes, you should. You want me, don't you?"

He seemed uncertain. "Sure…"

"Kakashi," she whispered, as her lips attacked a spot below his ear. "Do you realize we're both naked in bed together?"

"You're not very naked," he pointed out, tugging on the belt of her skirt. Sakura looked down in surprise. From the waist down she was still very much dressed in her mid-calf summer skirt and stockings, though one of her red pumps had slipped off her feet and was now half buried in the sheets. "Should I take them off?" she asked.

"If you like," Kakashi said indifferently, because either way his hand was already crawling up the back of her thigh to evaluate the underwear situation. His fingers traced the conservative hems of her briefs (since all kunoichi knew that you didn't wear risqué panties with a skirt at a party full of mischievous ninja) and then pinched one of her soft cheeks hard enough to make her squeak and flex towards him.

He kissed her again, occupying and distracting her from the fact that he was slipping her panties down to her knees. Sakura helped him. She kicked them off, along with her remaining shoe, and eagerly lifted her knee to cradle his hips with blatant encouragement. This was it. Excitement and giddiness rolled through her. Kakashi was urging her onto her back and moving over her to align their hips. It was all so completely mad, but Sakura wanted nothing more than for him to be inside her, moving against her.

However, something wasn't right. Kakashi paused, looking down at himself in confusion.

Sakura shifted restlessly. "What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I don't know…" he muttered, still looking puzzled. "Sakura, keep touching me."

She didn't need to be told; her hands were already stroking over his shoulders and running through his hair. They kissed again as she scraped her nails lightly down his broad, strong back, and she gasped slightly when his hips ground against hers. Yet something was still wrong, and Sakura could feel it too now.

Kakashi was having a hard time keeping it up.

While he reached down between them, trying to motivate the star of the next act, Sakura worried her lip between her teeth. "Is it me?" she whispered, mortified.

He snorted and shook his head. Then he gasped. "Wait, I think I've got it."

Sakura's hand gripped his arm tightly as she felt the sudden hot prod of his erection at her entrance. And it was really only then that she realized she wasn't particularly ready either, and despite Kakashi's sudden surge in libido, there was no way he was going anywhere.

"Sakura, you have to loosen up," he told her through gritted teeth.

"Wait, I'm not ready," she gasped. He could push all he liked, but it wasn't going to help. She willed herself to relax and shifted her hips to find a better angle, though it still stung like hell as the first inch of his thick member penetrated her, provoking a soft cry of pain.

And through it all, the star was struggling with his performance, probably suffering the greatest set-back in his career so far. Kakashi's erection began to wane, then seemed to give up entirely, and no amount of cajoling could bring it back. Sakura had to press a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling, but when she met Kakashi's eyes she couldn't help but burst out into sniggers.

"It's not that funny," he said, even though he was grinning too.

"Yes, it is," she gasped, holding her belly as laughs shook her entire frame. "This is a disaster! You can't keep it up, I can't fit you in, we might as well go to the living room and play card games."

"Urgh…" Kakashi flopped onto his back with an arm strewn across his eyes. "God, I hope I've forgotten all this in the morning."

"You wish," she snickered and lay her head down on his other arm like it was a pillow. She wanted to say more, but she was inexplicably tired from failing to have sex, and she was pretty sure that Kakashi was already dead to the world. He really was completely sloshed. He had been the moment she'd found him, and so Sakura couldn't help but feel a momentary pang of sober concern that this counted as taking advantage of him. After all, she wasn't nearly as drunk as him, but at least enough to be able to shrug off the concern and fall fast asleep after only a few minutes lying next to his warm, solid body.

* * *

Kakashi stared at Sakura who calmly sipped her coffee. "That's it?"

"What did you think happened?" she asked innocently.

"Well, I _obviously_ thought we'd…" He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "But this is _much_ worse."

Sakura patted the top of his head consolingly. "There there," she soothed. "We can always try again."

He looked up and met Sakura's gaze over the steam of her coffee mug.

She smiled.


End file.
